Faith
Faith is universal, I believe. It comes down to believing there is something bigger than us out there. Something that knows more than we ever could, and can help us more than we can help ourselves. In fact, where would we be without faith?
I know where I wouldn’t be: in Nashville. I’m not sure how I ended up in Nashville – one of the most faith-centered towns around but I did, and it never once felt foreign to me.
Mamas and Sundays are about church and baseball.
Not that Toronto isn’t a great town (Ha, you know Nashville has rubbed off on me when I’m calling the largest city in Canada a “town”). I love my home, but it’s a cynical place. There is a lot of that tongue-in-cheek, sarcastic humour here that you just don’t see down South. Community papers tend to lean quite far to the left and the most outlandish, miserable headline seems to win out. As Torontonians, we are mostly used to it. We are used to the constant negativity. We are used to the grunge, the sound of the subway, the ink on our fingers from the paper – but sometimes when I first return home from Nashville, I can feel the contrast like a weight, and sometimes I wonder if under the guise of being counter-culture, we are actually watering down the beauty of wholesomeness. In the effort to be subversive, have we lost sight of all the simple and beautiful things in life, even in this gritty, gritty city?
Though I am not a resident of Nashville, and only a regular visitor, I have witnessed an internal struggle within the town itself, and within country music as a whole. “Bro-country” as it is now called, is a genre of country made up of male artists; think lots of beer-trucks and girls in cut-off shorts; references which have been highly marketable and successful, especially with artists like Florida Georgia Line. There are so many crossover hits, that they often sound completely different from traditional country or even some contemporary country.
I enjoy writing about real life, and most of the writers I gravitate towards share similar values. We want to write about an experience we had, or a feeling, or the irony in life that no-one really talks about – and when that song can get you some money in return, that’s a win-win. But the goal isn’t money or profit, the goal is to write something important, something that needs to be said – even if it just embodies a feeling or a moment. A beautiful example of this is the song “Hold My Hand” by Brandy Clark and Steven Jones. The song captures the feeling of being with a new boyfriend or girlfriend, running into their ex and wishing at that moment your current lover would just take your hand. It’s a simple notion, but there’s power in something as simple as grabbing someone’s hand in support, there’s something profound in a physical gesture that so perfectly says something we all need to hear sometimes: “I’m here for you.” At the end of the day, isn’t that what faith is? The belief that there is something else out there, that when you are at your lowest, knees to the ground, hands quivering in fear or doubt, that overwhelming feeling that something or someone is there for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai4kVwg1kkc
I don’t think there is any way to attempt anything in the arts – particularly when trying to pursue a career in it, without a heavy dose of faith. You need faith for magical things to happen, stars need to align, timing has to work, there are many blessings involved along with trying to constantly to work on your craft. Call it luck, call it good fortune, but whatever it is, you must be truly blessed to be able to turn your sincerest dreams into a reality.
I’ll leave you with one more thought. In my writing sessions in Nashville, when we know that we’re on the road to creating something magical, my co-writer will announce, “Let’s say a little prayer right now for this song, that it gets where it needs to go.” I hope these words, this blog, even me, get to where we need to go. I have faith that one day we all will.
Love Dayna
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