The Guitar Man

It was just great being back to the hospital today after a break. My work today brought to mind that old song by the group Bread, "The Guitar Man"--do you remember it? The chorus goes:

"He can make you love


He can make you cry


He will bring you down


Then he'll get you high
"

Our music team got a request in the book for some guitar music. (other musicians I work with play the harp). We rarely get a specific instrument requested, so I figured it was likely someone who either used to play the guitar or still does. When I got to the man's room and told him I was going to play my guitar, he immediately brightened and asked me if I wrote my own compositions. I asked him if he played and he told me about bands he used to tour around with.  He said he wanted to hear my music and so I pulled up a chair, tuned up and started to play a new piece titled, "Promise of Spring". Not far into the piece, he asked, "can you hum along with it?" and so I did so and he burst into tears.  They were tears of great relief, as if he so much needed to unburden himself and only music could do it for him. After I finished the piece, he said he thought my music was very beautiful and my playing was more refined than his. He said he  played more bluesy "back home" kind of music. And so I started to play some blues chords and he said, "keep doing that!" and he sat up in bed and improvised his own blues song. We must have done this a good 10 minutes or more and he would direct me here and there by saying, "now do some picking" or "ok now you sing something" and he would say, "Oh yeah!" and nod his head. 

At one point, a nurse came in to give him a shot and he just kept singing and raised his arm to take it and did not seem to even notice it. Then I sang the blues about that, "I just got a shot and now I ain't feelin' so hot. "and he laughed, "oh yeah!" 

I had never had anyone direct me to play or sing in the way he did. It was as if I were his hands, and I gave voice to his yearning to play guitar.  There was a sense of urgency about his response to the music which made me think of the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz.  The scene when Dorothy found him rusted on the hill and he urgently directed her to oil his mouth, arms, legs and how he would show such profound relief. This man did the same with songs. I would start playing, "Fire and Rain" and he would take over singing it. We sang, "My Girl", "Hey Jude", "With a Little Help from my Friends", "Stand by Me" this way. It was quite cathartic for me too. I was so glad that I was able to get the sounds he needed out of my guitar.

I felt like the "guitar man" in the Bread song--only I'd have to change it to be the "guitar woman" or "guitar person".    Here's another snippet of the song:

"Then you listen to the music and you'd like to sing along
And you want to get the meaning out of each and every song
And you find yourself a message and some words to call your own and take 'em home"

Oh yeah.