Page 78 - ION Indie Magazine MayJune 2018 Issue

THE PANORAMIC VIEW
Take one small suitcase and come along on a journey of discovery. Stories, people, places, feelings and
thoughts await you…

1. ONE SMALL SUITCASE: Two people running off together,
in secret, in search of a better life, escaping a bad one.
These two aren’t free in life in general, there’s real danger
for them. But the same spirit can apply whatever life you
have.

2. HOUSE FULL OF CHILDREN: The Detroit blues artist
Eddie ‘Guitar’ Burns was a kind and joyful man who lived
with the children of both of his marriages. There were lots
of them, of all ages. Because he cared about them, instead
of doing all the music he could have done, he took multiple
jobs to support them.

3. WHAT SON HOUSE SAID: Son House was one of the great inventors of blues music and therefore, all music

you’ve ever liked if you’re a half-decent human being. He recorded his classic stuff in the 1920s and 30s and
then disappeared from music till the 1960s. When they brought him back, he could play and sing fine, but he
was always too drunk to talk coherently. On one live recording, he tries heroically to explain what blues is all
about, what life is all about, how it’s all about men and women and heartbreak and betrayal and all that. But
he can’t quite say it clearly. This might be what he meant.

4. MEET ON THE OTHER SIDE: Gospel music 5. RAGGED: Some
is basically about “the other side” -- the life
beyond this one that the people who sang it people are neat and
smart and things run
and listened to it yearned for because their quite smoothly for
own life was so terrible. The idea that you them…and then some

might somehow be with the people you love people simply aren’t
in a life after this one remains appealing and like that at all. This song
comforting, even if you haven’t got religion. is for them.

6. FALLING DOWN: Well, it is the oldest damn story that’s ever
been told, and it might have been your story at one time, might
even be your story now.

7. HIGH JOHN: In black folklore, High John, also known as John

the Conqueror or John the Conquer Root, was a spirit character,
a will ‘o’ the wisp who could be cheeky to the master and then
disappear at will. This made him a very appealing character for
those people with such appalling lives, but it’s a pretty appealing
idea to be able to do that in whatever life you have.