see you later Mr. Haggard

"His song is real and he is real."
-- Myung-Hee Hur






You don't have to be rich
To be my girl
You don't have to be cool
To rule my world
Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with
I just want your extra time and your


Kiss





_________________________


Now -- Prince.


As human beings, we know on some level that everyone will die at some point, yet we're always surprised when someone dies.  And when it's an artist whose work has been part of our experience on earth, then it seems sad, or weird, or unacceptable, when we hear in the news that they have passed on.  ("No way!  I love his songs!")


A friend of mine who left us about a year ago said to me once, when we were talking about people in our lives whom we had lost, "The only thing we can do is accept it."


But we do not really want to accept it.  A Reader Comment on yesterday's NYTimes Prince article said,
"Please let it be a mistake.  So great and joyful an artist, so prescient, so lively, so much fun to watch and to dance to -- I can't believe it."  --  (Sergio Georgini, NYC)


Another typed, "Prince took elements of rock, funk, soul, and even gospel, and infused them into a unique sound that transcended them all.  And his influence was felt throughout the 80s and 90s.  To say that I am floored by this is total understatement."




Another Reader Commented, "Prince was always out of this world and down to earth at the same time."




_________________________________
_________________________________


"All these songs together, one after another made my head spin....it all just about knocked me down.  It was like the record player itself had just picked me up and flung me across the room."
-- Dylan




One of the things music gives us is feelings, frameworks, and ideas, about life -- Bob Dylan said of Woody Guthrie, "It was like, you could listen to his songs and -- learn how to live."


Two weeks ago when people were writing Comments about Merle Haggard's passing, Michelle, US, wrote at the NYTimes site about listening to "Hungry Eyes" -- "I...hung on every word...as he spun his truth -- a truth I knew on some other level of consciousness....The world has lost a profound truth-teller in a time when we need them more than ever."




---------------------- The artist -- the art -- tells us the truth, a truth, helps us feel our truth, and some days might "fling us across a room" -- in some spiritual kind of way.




> >  Myung-Hee Hur    Greenwich, CT
April 11
I am from South Korea and country music has been love of my life since coming to the United States.  I go to sleep and wake up to country music.  Mr Haggard has been my all time favorite and my hero.  His song is real and he is real.  My only regret is that I have never attended his concert.


Mr. Haggard, as long as all of your music is in my iPad, iPhone and my Mac, you will never be forgotten.  I cannot live without these.


See you later Mr. Haggard.





















-30-