Restless

Last night, I watched Michael Cody, a colleague in the ETSU Department of Literature & Language, give a solo acoustic concert in a coffee shop in neighboring Kingsport, Tennessee. He played a mix of his original songs ("Genesis Road," "In the Jaws of Modern Romance," and a song I think he titled "There's Always a Train") and some cover material, notably Bruce Springsteen's "Gypsy Biker" and Golden Earring's "Radar Love" (the latter without the extended instrumental break). He cannot stand still when he performs, he has a surprising range as a vocalist, and he has a canny ability to put together a set list. He was happy and comfortable, and everyone had a good time.

. . . except the evening made me restless. During performances I have to endure one of two kinds of restlessness. The bad one has to do with my yearning for the ordeal to end. The other kind, the kind I suffered last night, was the urge to start making something. I was listening to Michael, but I was also watching his left hand to figure out chord progressions. It was all I could do, when I got home, to keep from grabbing a guitar and working out how he had played some of the songs. That is always a positive experience; it comes from readings and workshops, from particularly successful classes, from conversations with friends over shared interests; a lot of my best work comes from this restlessness.

Michael made me restless. He performed songs, and he sometimes performed them as if there were no one there to watch him, lost in the pleasure of playing, making self-deprecating acknowledgment when he came back to us in the audience. It was in no way a selfishness on his part, because he erased himself in a way, giving himself completely to the performance and making himself his own instrument. It was a pleasure to see his happiness to perform.

You can enjoy his studio-recorded performance of his original song, "Homecoming," here, and you can feel some of that restlessness, too.