My friend Stella reminded me that guitars are made from trees, from living things - they are not just objects, but an extension of ourselves. If a dog can resemble its owner, why can’t a guitar?
The Monterey made it through customs last week, and our cousin got it for us, knocking on the door as a surprise with the great box to rip into. I told him he was now a guitar angel. The tape gives way, the box is opened, the plastic removed, and there in all of its naked glory is this weathered guitar from the 50s, carefully restored by a guy named Harry. I’ll be damned if that is not a version of myself in the box staring up at me. Funny how that happens.
It is just a little smaller than I expected, and I tune it carefully after the epic journey it made from North Carolina to Tbilisi. It sounds beautiful. Tender, and sweet, throaty and bold. Like any new guitar, it is irresistible. You keep taking it for test drives, and see if a familiar song sounds different on it, see what it wants to do, what tricks are up its sleeve, what it shies away from and what it runs towards. I have a new friend now, with stories to tell.
I play the guitar every night, in no rush to make something new with it. We are just getting to know each other. The training wheels are still on, and we are just coasting up and down the driveway without a care in the world. There is a real focus to the sound, a clarity, and a gentleness. Of course it is old sounding, that is no surprise. It is the youthful underbelly, the romance in this guitar that splashes a quiet smile across my face late at night as I play it softly, like someone that robbed a bank and takes one gold bar out to marvel at, after everyone has gone to sleep.
And then, on Sunday afternoon in Open D tuning - a song surfaces. I almost forgot these fragments I wrote a few months ago - something about young love and how it will never work out and at the time we know it but fall hard anyways, chasing each other behind the reflections of train windows, naked and exploring, crying in the middle of a fight, so full of that ego that young people have, like they are the center of the universe, the god of their dusty trailer park, invincible and fearless, suddenly broken and alone when it all comes tumbling down.
The song comes together quickly, with plenty of rough edges to solve and clunkers to rewrite but the bones are there. This new guitar was the car and the road, the mountains in the distance, the clouds in the sky, the smell of cheap perfume, the warm hand on my shoulder, and we made something together.
(Just a quick note for the curious - if you want to hear any of the demos for the new album I am working on, you can hear all of them on my Patreon account. It’s just $2 a month.) https://www.patreon.com/marconorth
Sounds good, Marco. So happy for you! There’s nothing like this feeling of finding a new old favorite guitar. Just traveled with mine to Juneau and back. We go everywhere together ♥️♥️
https://youtu.be/yxAZ3YyjtPg?si=E3KD9AcwuzrdGqbD