More Miles
I’m sitting in my hotel room in Zürich, the most high-tech hotel I’ve been in all my travels. The closets and minibar are designed to look like bank vaults, and I get the joke, although I’m not sure the Swiss intended it as a joke. It’s pricey here! I’m glad for a nice place to rest, after a haphazard route from Stockholm to Denmark to the UK; it’s been one manic mile after another.
Today, we’re all catching our breath.
Bryan Owings and I took the tram down to the central station yesterday, and enjoyed walking around the Old City, taking in the beautiful buildings, clock towers, and spires. It’s Gig #6 in Emmylou’s Farewell Tour of Europe. I guess it’s her last rodeo over here, and I’m glad to be a part of the shindig; I’ve been in her Red Dirt Boys for 18 years.
“Farewell” is a word I interpret as “Hello”- what’s next? It’s exciting to me. I love the road, and I love being home. As long as I’m with my people, I’m basically good, even with bad routing.
While here, I’ve been tidying up “More Miles”, the companion record to “The Millionth Mile”, which comes out September 18. I don’t know when “More Miles” will officially release yet, but it’s coming.
There are many ways one can measure a lifespan. Years, wealth, health, wounds, victories. But with two albums with the word “MILE” in their titles, and a book whose title Summer of Gone infers distance, I suppose one could measure my life in miles.
Summer of Gone reads like a travelogue, and on this tour, which ironically started in Oslo the day the book released, I’ve been reminded of chapters that take place in some of the cities we’re playing in. Especially in Oslo and Stockholm, cities that represent family bonding times with my daughters, and overseas friendships that have remained vital for years, and never so much as in my summer of gone.
We landed in Oslo on the 19th of August, and enjoyed a free day on the 20th, just enough time to visit with two of the Humming People, the Norwegian band I’ve worked with over the years. The night of our second show, I gathered with all 4 of the band for dinner before the concert. It was the first time all of us had been in the same room since 2017, when Kate and Maddy and I had visited.
That visit of a decade ago had been bittersweet, while this time had been joyous; all 5 of us had been through some serious life changes, and I wasn’t the only one who had been visited by sorrow. But as we dined close to the Oslo harbor, we were all in places of peace and gratitude.
I parted with Humming People, warmed by the possibility of making more music together.
The day before Emmylou’s Stockholm gig, Bryan and I popped into Sven Hellten’s famed Hellstone Music, one of the greatest vintage instrument stores in the world. I had been there with Kate and Maddy over a decade ago, where we visited with drummer and dear friend Brady Blade.
This time, it was Bryan and me, with Emmylou’s grandchild Amarylus and our crew chief Maple Byrne, picking old guitars and swooning over rare vintage drums, including a snare drum once owned by Spike Jones.
The morning of the show, Bryan and I took the tram to gamla Stan (Old Stockholm), and picked up some souvenirs, including a Swedish flag that I waved later when we took our final bow.
Gamla Stan is yet another place that holds memories of my travels with my daughters.
Walking around, I couldn’t help but think of our Scandinavian trip in 2017, when we stayed with our friends the Forsbergs for a few nights, and when we traveled from Stockholm to Gotland, a Swedish Island in the Baltic Sea. If you read Summer of Gone, you’ll find us in Visby, the medieval town in Gotland. In our odd little hotel room at the Hotel Visby, you’ll share my sense of foreboding as I reckon with the cold front coming from a love gone wrong in Nashville. But, you’ll simultaneously find me exulting in the work of recording “Providence”, as musicians send their remotely recorded parts to me.
That’s the thing about the miles we travel; we’ll trip on a few roots, but we’ll also be overwhelmed by the fragrance of honeysuckle at the same time. Summer of Gone isn’t just about how dark my forest seemed in those days; it’s also about the rays of light and joy breaking through the heavy branches; it celebrates the beauty of Story.
We have miles to go before we head home, but from this point on, there’s no retracing of the steps in Summer of Gone. We’ll be in Brussels tomorrow, followed by shows in Antwerp and Manheim, and then a hard day of travel back to Nashville.
From here on out, the triggered memories will be little things.
For instance, when I’m in Brussels, I might try to find the cafe where I had a proper paella, surprised at how much better the Spanish dish was in Belgium than when I tried it in Barcelona in 2005 with Buddy Miller. Or, the gig in Bruges where one of our temporary sound crew didn’t want the band to partake in the crew lunch, and became enraged to the point of nearly coming to blows with our fiddle player. Why the mind contains ephemera like this, I’ll never know, especially when it sometimes lets go of things that matter.
No one wants to revisit their sorrows, but we need them. We need the contrast between light and dark in order to truly count our blessings.
Anyway, that’s my postcard from Mercyland, or should I say, Zürich. Today, may you see a landmark in your journey that brings you a worthwhile memory.