Along the Way

The Tao Te Ching and circling, always circling towards freedom

Hello!

Last week, I said that the first four tunes I would share would all be from an EP of impressionist electronica made in April 2021. I've changed my mind. I don't have a good reason why. I still (probably) plan to generally move through my post-2020 work in a vaguely chronological manner, but I thought it might be more refreshing if you never knew what you were going to get each week. It also means I can more easily write about whatever I feel like writing about. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So this week you get a song from a folk album. Though the album was finished much later, this particular song was written in late Fall 2020. From looking at the file history, it seems to have been largely produced on November 30 and December 1, 2020.

When presenting songs with lyrics, I don't want to spell too much out, nor can I remember my exact state of mind at the time of writing. A song is not an argument, and many of my favourite songs slowly reveal their secrets over the years. My interpretation today will likely change next year. But I do know that this song was written at a time when I was meditating twice a day, biking up Mount Royal a few times a week — timing my rides to coincide with the sunset — and generally feeling a lot more peaceful than I usually do. Encountering the Tao Te Ching (Ursula Le Guin's version) probably had a lot to do with that.

The title of this song is definitely a reference to that encounter: Tao roughly translates to way or path. I also know that I was spending a lot of time with this playlist. The music is not specifically drawn from here — I'd been messing around with the main guitar part for years — but the playlist does give you a feel for my headspace at the time.

On looking back at the song, the first thing that jumps out at me is that there is a kind of circular lilt to both the lyrics and music. Musically, the main guitar part sounds like an echo of Chimurenga music. Jonah Sithole as if played by John Martyn. Chimurenga music, like the mbira traditions it draws on, is often based around repeating motifs and simple chord progressions that slowly hypnotize, pulling the listener into a gentle trance.

In Along the Way, the music's circular feel mirrors the circularity of time and of the egoistic inner-monologue-style lyrics. We find negative self-talk, endless questions without answers, worries about what a life is for and what the past is for, happy memories of nights spent up all night with friends bitching about the world, and reflections on past actions, both of oneself and of others. Guilt and shame are referenced several times.

What is the relationship between self-acceptance, anger, and regret? Who, really, are the “they” that come before us? Can we learn from the past, or is it better to simply accept what’s coming? Does the truth promise solutions or merely bludgeon us into submission? What is the relationship between today and tomorrow? What happens when we hold and hold and hold?

Following the Tao Te Ching, the song seems to suggest that both strength and peace are more easily won by accepting one's part in the natural cycle of life. “Rivers keep the drought at bay.” Or as the Tao Te Ching puts it: water “goes right to the low loathsome places and so finds the way.” Letting go, especially of our need to impose ourselves on the world, is a major theme of the Tao Te Ching. “Let the world make you anew.” But sensing an answer does not mean escaping the circularity. Perhaps the best we can do, as Freud suggested, is “change neurotic misery to ordinary suffering.”

We re-occur to ourselves over and over. Time slips through our fingers and then rushes up on us. In Along the Way, it's circles all the way down.

Or so it seems to me today, but you should decide for yourself.

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Hate the work, it never pays,
Hate your love, it never stays,
Hate the feelings we all hold,
Hate your face and hate your soul.
     
Forget you're good, forget your mess,
Forget your most, forget you're less,
Forget the work at which they toiled,
The work for which your life is spoiled.

Hate it all to live again,
Hate it all to be my friend.
I love to hate along with you,
Love to push our livers through
The night while loving hating fate
And all that's left and all that's stayed.
Cause it's not worth it if you fight,
What's the point of being right?
The truth is just another gun,
For killing you, for killing love.

You'll be at home,
Along the way.

When writing lyrics, show don't tell,
But how to show a little hell?
It's not a love they never knew,
It wasn't faith — they lacked that, too —
In everything beyond a grave,
In all the lives they couldn't save,
Until their mind came rushing out,
Fuming anger, barking shouts.
It grows inside of you, but how?
The shame and anger, the furrowed brows,

Regret your heart, regret your fate,
Regret your friends and what they hate,
Regret the words you never say,
Hope your heart is brave some day.

Another game, another play,
Among their minds along the way,
With those old familiar blues,
Shades of lies and shades of truth.
  
Beauty, fear, disgust and hate,
Let the world make you anew.

Rainfall keeps the clouds at bay,
Deserts keep the rains at bay,
Rivers keep the drought at bay,
Today's beach tomorrow's bay.

To make a home without a wall,
To love someone while feeling small,
To bear a cross without a claim,
Letting go will help it stay.

To give it all and keep what's left,
To hold yourself and take a step,
To let your heart beat reassure,
The accepting soul is what endures.

You'll be at home,
Along the way.