Bruce Hornsby is quite an accomplished musician. With his band The Range, he had a number of hits in the 1980s (you probably know Mandolin Rain), and even played keyboards for the Grateful Dead for a time. His song Indigo Park on the album of the same name has become an earworm for me recently.
I have an eclectic taste in music — I like all kinds of stuff: rock ‘n roll (from the Beatles to Jimi Hendrix), classical (all the greats — Beethoven, Bach, Handel), folk (John Prine, Mary Chapin Carpenter), bluegrass (Bela Fleck), jam bands (Phish and Umphreys McGee), Latin (Juan Gabriel, Juanes), Bachata (Juan Luis Guerra, Romeo Santos), and more. The one common denominator for me is that I like melodies. Some of the electronic music or dissonant avant-garde recordings are not for me.
That’s why this song has been a surprise for me. It’s the only song on Hornsby’s new album that I like. But for some reason, I like it a lot. I find myself humming it at odd moments, or singing the line “O let these days be your delight” in my car.
The rest of the album feels more experimental and less melodic.
Here is a link to the performance:
The song is a retrospective look at a dumb mistake he made at age 16, trying to make a “great big entrance” to impress people at the Indigo Park Pool, and ended up making him look silly and embarrassing him.
Now Hornsby is looking at this event from the perspective of a 70 year old man, and the mistake from his youth becomes little more than a humorous story that he can remember with kindness rather than criticism of his younger self.
We’ve all done or said boneheaded stuff in our lives — I know I have. When I think of these things I can get down on myself at times. Wouldn’t it be nice to be a little more forgiving of ourselves?
The song takes a longer and broader view, and recognizes that one moment doesn’t define a life. Another line that I like says: “Succeed or fail it’s all the same — It’s only life, and life is enough.” This life we’re given encompasses so much — pain and delight, both. Maybe our drive for success is not all that important.
Here’s what Hornsby says about the song:
As I was boring Lisa with my repetitive playing of this song, she pointed out to me that the sometimes irreverent writer and pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber wrote a blog about her daily prayer, “God, help me not be an asshole.” Then she had dinner with a friend who told her that her daily prayer was, “God, help me be surprised and delighted by my life today.” Bolz-Weber thought that one was so much better.
That story made me realize that this one line from Bruce Hornsby could be both a blessing and a prayer. So please. accept this blessing: “O let these days be your delight.” Amen.
Maybe even captured in rhythm and rhyme.
