Nez is fun to read, eloquent, profound and bizarre all at once. "The songs sing themselves", like he wrote about Linda Ronstadt's recordings. He feels them as living things, which is fascinating, and a great way to interpret the "gifts" you were given as a young person.
He's not doing an "Oldies" tour; he's always honoring The Songs.
I think about the Monkees tour that has passed and my solo tour that is to come and I am parsing the differences to see which is which.
The Monkees concert was pop songs played well. It was great fun and I loved it.
My solo tour is yet unknown to me.
Nevertheless, as the show is forming, these are the things I am beginning to understand about it --
We teach what we are.
We are not what we teach.
The songs sing themselves.
We hope they sing us well.
When I stand on a concert stage and look out at the faces I am filled with the same surprise and calm as when I see a beautiful sight of nature or an exquisite design of the heart.
There is a resonance of light from the eyes to the stage and back. In that resonance I hear the phantom chords and hidden tones and know the subtle meanings of words.
In that resonance are the thought values.
A friend asked to borrow a couple of ideas and phrases that had bobbed up during our conversations over the last few days – asking me as if they were mine because I had said them.
I said “Of course – they are yours to keep” and I thought “they have been yours all along”.
These things we share are so subtle and quiet yet we think the noise is what originates the ideas that connect us. We laugh and talk and play our instruments and wave our hands -- all to the good -- but it is the quiet voice that is shared among us that gives me the only voice I have.
I am going on this Fall solo tour -- me and a band – knowing -- with my friends and lovers, my brothers and sisters, my fathers and mothers -- that inside -- in the stillness of a song -- we are all singing the same tune, living the same life, patiently waiting, as we all must, for each revealed step to lead us to the next.
I will play from the end of October, starting on the 27th in Phoenix and ending November 24th, in Milwaukee. Those are the bookends – the schedule is still getting filled in but most of it is now up at videoranch.com
Michael Nesmith Status Update, FB, 9/1/2013
He's not doing an "Oldies" tour; he's always honoring The Songs.
I think about the Monkees tour that has passed and my solo tour that is to come and I am parsing the differences to see which is which.
The Monkees concert was pop songs played well. It was great fun and I loved it.
My solo tour is yet unknown to me.
Nevertheless, as the show is forming, these are the things I am beginning to understand about it --
We teach what we are.
We are not what we teach.
The songs sing themselves.
We hope they sing us well.
When I stand on a concert stage and look out at the faces I am filled with the same surprise and calm as when I see a beautiful sight of nature or an exquisite design of the heart.
There is a resonance of light from the eyes to the stage and back. In that resonance I hear the phantom chords and hidden tones and know the subtle meanings of words.
In that resonance are the thought values.
A friend asked to borrow a couple of ideas and phrases that had bobbed up during our conversations over the last few days – asking me as if they were mine because I had said them.
I said “Of course – they are yours to keep” and I thought “they have been yours all along”.
These things we share are so subtle and quiet yet we think the noise is what originates the ideas that connect us. We laugh and talk and play our instruments and wave our hands -- all to the good -- but it is the quiet voice that is shared among us that gives me the only voice I have.
I am going on this Fall solo tour -- me and a band – knowing -- with my friends and lovers, my brothers and sisters, my fathers and mothers -- that inside -- in the stillness of a song -- we are all singing the same tune, living the same life, patiently waiting, as we all must, for each revealed step to lead us to the next.
I will play from the end of October, starting on the 27th in Phoenix and ending November 24th, in Milwaukee. Those are the bookends – the schedule is still getting filled in but most of it is now up at videoranch.com
Michael Nesmith Status Update, FB, 9/1/2013
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