I Believe In Folk Music

   I guess it all started five years ago. Around April. May maybe. Free Singles of the week are usually crap on iTunes. But not that week, “She’s Mine” by Brett Dennen. That is what they had to offer, and what I heard was beautiful. This proclaimed ‘Bob Dylan’ of the twenty first century launched my fixation with folk music. From that moment on, I was in love for life. All it took was a song about love and standing up to a leader who leads you nowhere. According to this inaugural folk song, “music fills the space between the deities and the prophecies.” If folk music is good enough to be in between ‘supreme beings’ and ‘divine visions’, then it sure as heck was good enough for me. I went out and bought the album. It was called “So Much More.” But I don’t think Brett Dennen really knew how ‘much more’ he was giving me when he titled that.
    From that point on I was downloading, buying, and scavenging the internet for new artists. I was always trying to be one step ahead of the new sound. I had also spread my finding of folk music on to my friends; it was nice having someone to talk about music with. In early 2005 I discovered who is now my favorite artist. I had seen his name on a dusty old website and decided to Google it because his name started with a “j” like mine and his last name had a “z” in it. With a name like that his sound had to be cool right? Well I am glad I did Google it because Jason Mraz was the craziest, loudest, softest, sweetest sound I had ever heard. His song “Common Pleasure” was the first one I downloaded. “It was a kind of treasure, one I was surely glad to find,” it seemed like Mraz was singing to me. Later that year I went to his concert at the Warfield, and if it was possible loved his music even more.
    I hate to say it but in the summer of 2007, Mraz’s position as favorite artist was threatened by two men, making enough noise to think it was three times as many. Their name was Nizolpi. English band, Hungarian name. I had swapped iPods with an Englishman sitting on a bus travelling from Scotland to Wales. His earphones were old and crusty. And his iPod was so old the screen was in black and white. But he had the most colorful and alive sound in the world packed into 2 GB. Luke Concannon and John Parker, heroes that made Nizlopi. One on the double bass and beat box, the other on the guitar and voice. Satisfying a thousand listeners through their music. And now a thousand and one. “The way you speak to me. My heart was opened up,” they sing to me. Maybe it was because Mraz hadn’t come out with a new album since 2005, but there was no denying Nizlopi was incredible. And even incredible can be heard by the deaf. Every word, syllable, breath; spoke the truth. You can stop trying so hard to live and just be. There is a path for you to follow. It was made by acoustic guitars and trumpets. By Percussion instruments and double basses. Nizlopi was the kind of group who could sing and their English accent wouldn’t disappear. Which was a big plus for me. Am I allowed to have two ultimate favorites? Maybe A favorite singer and a favorite band?
    I had dreams about folk music. Your voice is like a gentle breeze, sweep me up. The collection of my soul to be taken up, towards the sky only to be swooping, twisting, twirling overhead. I curl my toes under and throw out my chest. Raise my arms to the sky and dance. People fall in love to folk music, people create hopes. “We were turning on our lives,” just like Nizlopi was in their song “The One.” We can listen to songs about our roots. Delve into our personal and national history and feel alive. We are ready to spend the rest of our life, living. Take hold of folk music. Put it in your pocket or under your pillow at night for sweet dreams. Transform into someone who is “capable of loving, and able to be loved,” in the words of my favorite two-man band.
    Crazy as it seems I heard more words in folk music songs than I spoke in a day. “I guess it just suggests that this is just what happiness is,” Mraz says to me. I can definitely agree with that. Folk music and humans go together like a raindrop and a seed. But how do I share it with the ones I love? If there was only some way to convey this great discovery that had changed my life in such a great way. In their song “Without You” Nizlopi sings “without you, my lonely soul goes walking around the world looking for something.” They could be talking about folk music. Would people be interested in listening if they knew that “without you, all my teeth fall out”? Can folk music really do all this to a person?
    You can be alone with folk music. You can share it with the whole world. You can take it out back and make friends to it. Cook to it. Eat to it. Strap it in the backseat and blast your way down the boulevard. Sleep with it on in the background where you can then wake up to it and can still smell the sweet sweat lingering in the atmosphere. The sun will shine and we can make the most of life. Be at one with yourself; create stories, dance, and feel the force that makes hearts beat. “It grows above; with a heart of love … We’re all breathing in … Because we’re only human,” you say it, Mraz.