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Ride It Out

from Small Stars by Doug Davis

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about

Full-on Dylan "Highway 61" mode here, obviously. This song was written near the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, when we were all beginning to rightly treat first-responders as saints.

But in the midst of all the rah-rah-ing, I recalled an old episode of This American Life about a mother who was dealing with a severely mentally disabled and violent child. She was talking about how one of the worst things she felt she had to deal with was the chorus of comments along the lines of "you must be a saint! I could never deal with that!" She found these comments to be misguided and borderline insulting, implying that she had some sort of choice in the matter.

I had never really thought about it in anything like those terms before. I'm not sure what this says about how we should approach those that do our societal dirty work for us in times of great trauma, but it certainly makes me realize that we need to weigh our words of support and admiration carefully.

lyrics

Well I met a man on boundary row

with dust caked on his tongue

and the bone and sinew ground to 
ash and marrow

and they gave him hero’s ribbons
and 
the homecome least he sought
And they sang the songs of grace
of vesper sparrows

She met a weary widow
with his ghosts arrayed like wares

on his prayer rug to be sold
to the highest bidder
She asked him when he’d fold
At the point of last confusion
Never crossed his clouded mind

to consider

If the dark fails the light
I’ll send you flares to find me
And if there’s nowhere to fall
we’ll stand and face the storm
And as the last stars of night

give way to dawn’s redemption
We’ll ride it out
What else can we do but ride it out

She says “I’ve given up the luxury
Of fortune-telling dreams
We can only see the shadows

'til we’re blinded
and you can pin the tag of hero’s curse

on the ever-fading badge

In the space between despair

and bloody-minded

And in my mind I’ll always be

a thousand miles away
But in my heart I’m standing
as your neighbor
And if I could control the winds

command the tides to pull me

what kind of man would shy from
such a labor?

If the dark fails the light
I’ll send you flares to find me
And if there’s nowhere to fall
we’ll stand and face the storm
And as the last stars of night

give way to dawn’s redemption
We’ll ride it out
What else can we do but ride it out

I’d ask you now to sing no more

the songs of grace and mercy

or shine your torch upon

the fields left fallow

for I can only battle
with the 
weapons I’ve been given
what choice have I been granted

in this hour?

If the dark fails the light
I’ll send you flares to find me
And if there’s nowhere to fall
we’ll stand and face the storm
And as the last stars of night

give way to dawn’s redemption
We’ll ride it out
What else can we do but ride it out

credits

from Small Stars, released January 8, 2021
Doug Davis: acoustic guitar, bass, vocals
Molly Davis: vocals
Susan Terry: viola
Luke Payne: acoustic guitar, mandolin
Corky McClellan: drums

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Doug Davis Winston Salem, North Carolina

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