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God Loves A Drunk
This is one of my favorite Richard Thompson songs, one of his beautiful darker tunes. It has a certain amount of personal meaning to me - one side of my wife's family was rife with alcoholic men, most of them reasonably functional, but one of her brothers was anything but. In addition to many other problems, he fathered a child that neither he or the mother were in any way able to care for, so the responsibility fell to my wife and I, and to some extent, to her (and his) parents. This child was damaged and limited from day 1, we did everything we could for him at great cost to our family, but ultimately were not able to help him much beyond giving him a safe and loving home for the years he lived with us. I held a LOT of anger toward this brother-in-law for many years for bringing a child into the world who never had a chance, and for the cost to our otherwise very happy family for the disruption helping raise his child brought to us.
Richard Thompson released this song on "Rumor and Sigh" in the early 90's, when we were going through some of the worst of this. And it's lyrics and haunting music helped me start on a long process of accepting and forgiving my brother in law for a condition that he ultimately had no more control over than I've had over asthma or other congenital health problems. Our nephew died a few years ago at age 30 and my brother in law died last year at 64. This song continues to hold great meaning for me, in addition to being the sadly beautiful work of one of my favorite artists. I don't do it much justice, but I love the song and play it quite often. This is it stripped down to its barest bones. -Ray
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"It's just honest human stuff that hadn't been near a dang metronome in its life" - Benmont Tench Last edited by raysachs; 02-28-2024 at 06:44 PM. |
#2
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Nice job on the RT song, Ray. Deep and meaningful, darker fare for sure.
I routinely play "Demon Alcohol" from the Kinks catalog if you want to consider one that is a bit lighter and playful, but still with an underlying message. |
#3
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Quote:
-Ray
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"It's just honest human stuff that hadn't been near a dang metronome in its life" - Benmont Tench |
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Thanks for this Ray. Painful personal and honest. That’s great art.
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#5
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Quote:
-Ray
__________________
"It's just honest human stuff that hadn't been near a dang metronome in its life" - Benmont Tench |
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Like you I love that song and RT, though I've never attempted to perform it. Listening to your honest version after your explanation of why you perform it added something more to it.
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----------------------------------- Creator of The Parlando Project Guitars: 20th Century Seagull S6-12, S6 Folk, Seagull M6; '00 Guild JF30-12, '01 Martin 00-15, '16 Martin 000-17, '07 Parkwood PW510, Epiphone Biscuit resonator, Merlin Dulcimer, and various electric guitars, basses.... |
#7
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Quote:
-Ray
__________________
"It's just honest human stuff that hadn't been near a dang metronome in its life" - Benmont Tench |
#8
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Dang, Ray,
What a story behind this song for you! Sometimes music helps us deal with life, maybe sometimes music just helps us to mark a place we have had to get over. I'm sorry for the impact that alcoholism has had on you and your family. I do admire and salute the efforts and sacrifices you and your wife and family made in the life of your nephew. - Glenn
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My You Tube Channel |
#9
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Quote:
-Ray
__________________
"It's just honest human stuff that hadn't been near a dang metronome in its life" - Benmont Tench |
#10
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Ray, Richard Thompson is such a genius. That's a truly beautiful song, and I like your version of it. It's really honest and obviously means a lot to you. That's what music is about in the end to me. Thank you for sharing. I have been sick as heck for the last week or so, so I haven't looked at this site much of late.
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Music: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyM...Ek2LconK-gQDFg |
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Hey Ray. thanks for posting this
I can identify to some extent. My own family had problems with alcohol both my mother and father were functioning alcoholics. And both my brother and I started down that path from our late teens, but we were both able to to finally stop in our mid 40's
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Enjoy the Journey.... Kev... KevWind at Soundcloud KevWind at YouYube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...EZxkPKyieOTgRD System : Studio system Avid Carbon interface , PT Ultimate 2023.12 -Mid 2020 iMac 27" 3.8GHz 8-core i7 10th Gen ,, Ventura 13.2.1 Mobile MBP M1 Pro , PT Ultimate 2024.3 Sonoma 14.4 |
#12
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Quote:
-Ray
__________________
"It's just honest human stuff that hadn't been near a dang metronome in its life" - Benmont Tench |
#13
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Quote:
-Ray
__________________
"It's just honest human stuff that hadn't been near a dang metronome in its life" - Benmont Tench |
#14
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Noticed the last comment for the posted video is from the actual player of the alto krumhorn featured on the track! |
#15
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Music: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyM...Ek2LconK-gQDFg |