“Bessie was more than just a friend of mine; We shared the good times and the bad”
That's a lyric from The Band song 'Bessie Smith'. It is an ode to the grand old dame of all blues singers. Bessie had long passed away before any of those boys were born and none of them ever got to actually meet her. They're singing about a connection they felt to her through her records. Not just a simple connection of recognition or empathy, but a connection of more than friendship. A bond, that was a reciprocated, circular, personal exchange. One that rose above convenience or ease and was strong and present in both the good times and the bad.
What a great bond to have. To know that because she had been there on both sides of the coin before, she would certainly be there again. She wouldn't change with the winds of time or the cast of a glance, because she was frozen in a moment on those records. They could put on 'Careless Love' and the emotion and the caution and the regret and the pain would sound the very same as it always did and leave them exactly desperate and hopeful. Bessie had been there. You could hear it in her wail. Bessie had probably been there much worse.
There's a light, jaunty lilt hidden amongst the sorrowful, steady humming pain of her 'Careless Love'. I always feel like she is saying: “Yeah, he done gone and made me moan. He done gone played me all in fun. Yeah I feel such a loss of control and decision. I've been done like this before and it's sure gonna be done again and I should know better, but there were parts of it that were just.... 'there'. Where it should be. And now I've seen those parts and I know they're real and I can have them, I wanna get me some more of that.”
It's all there on the record. She is talking straight to you, like more than just a friend.
“All those crazy things I had to try. Well I tried it all and then some.”
They sing that in the second verse and you know that they went off and didn't listen for a while and then got all tangled up and now they're back. They're coming back to her because she gave before and they need her again. This time, however, they are a little different. They know they have seen more of what she warned of. They have been to the peaks that she described. They've grown harder, less trusting and a little burnt around the edges. They're closer to the finishing line and have faced unexpected hope and been shown even more. They've skated out on the thin part of the ice reaching for Kierkegaard's Jewel. Maybe they felt it start to crack or maybe even they fell through into the chilly waters below. Time and what filled it has moved them and even though Bessie is going to be the same, the way they look at her will not be. They know she is gonna be there, but how will they see her? Will their change, change her?
“Now I'm going down the road to see Bessie Smith and when I get there I'm wondering what she'll do.”
That wondering is nervousness. Bessie is more than a friend. She is gonna hold up a mirror and make them look at it. The mirror never lies and neither do great friends. Sure, she will soothe their hearts and cool their foreheads, but she will also pull them into those private moments in the mind where they can't lie to themselves. They are scared of her truth. That fear – and it's a fear of their true selves – causes them to further wonder:
“Was it her sweet love or the way that she could sing?”
Boys, Boys! Of course it was the way she could sing!! That's the point. She loves you because you love her. That's what makes it “more than a friendship” - the fact that she gives back unto you the very same, and not a drop less, than you give to her. You love her, so she loves you the same. However, why her? Why love her and not, say, the girl screeching on the subway train with her shiny, new, acoustic guitar? Because of the way that Bessie could sing!!
That singing is so pure, so from within, so easy to understand, so rich and yet light and yet intense and yet sweet, that it has to be the truth. That has to be exactly what the truth sounds like. Like Bessie. Bessie is the truth in their life and the only way they know her, for they never met her in person, is through her singing. Which is consistent and on record and always there. Even when they change. Anytime they need her, she is there – singing for them.
That's a friendship. More than a friendship.
Damn, I need me one of those. I'm waiting on something. Something to come. Until then, I'm going to be with Bessie for a while and some other more-than-friends too. Muddy, Dylan, Waits, Brownie, Nina......
