Candy Says / Mississippi Babe

Friends, loves,

I’ve been in a Keats kinda mood. You know John Keats?

‘Tis ‘the witching time of night,’

Orbed is the moon and bright,

And the stars they glisten, glisten,

Seeming with bright eyes to listen—

For what listen they?

For a song and for a charm,

See they glisten in alarm,

And the moon is washing warm

To hear what I shall say.

OK, let’s begin: I’ve been out in the world. And at home. Growing my hair long. Dressing in drag and playing in a Grateful Dead cover band (at the same time). Thinking about the Robin Hoods of this earth. Making warm soup. Writing, or considering writing. Sailing the holiday straits. Looking for a little grace.

(Caitlyn Doyle of the drag Grateful Dead cover band Bertha and I singing at the Kennedy Center in D.C. I think it was “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad.” Photo by Dylan Akers.)

It’s cold here in Durham, North Carolina. Winter is upon us. Things get processed differently when it’s cold outside. One of the main spaceways my musical brain is currently traveling—besides writing Hiss Golden Messenger songs— is through a new Revelators album. For those that don’t know, Revelators Sound System (or just Revelators) is a project that I started with my friend Cameron Ralston a few years ago that invokes our shared love of dub, spiritual jazz, trance music, whatever you want to call it. That’s the language that we use. But really it’s an emotional and spiritual project. The last record felt like it was working through grief, like global grief; it’s sort of floating and heavy. The new one is tilling a different kind of field, I think.

(Photo by Chris Frisina. This was taken at his art studio in Durham. Chris said he was going to spraypaint our band name on the wall, and when we asked if that was going to cause problems with the landlord, he assured us it was no problem at all. We took this shot and walked to get some lunch and his landlord called fifteen minutes later demanding to know what “Revelators Sound System” was. Cameron is on my right. Incredible human being, incredible musician. We share a lot of life stuff. You’ve maybe seen him playing in Bonny Light Horseman lately.)

There are so many people involved in this latest Revelators record, including our friend JT Bates whom has become sort of the third leg of our stool. When will it be done? I don’t know. How will it come out? I have no idea. It’s fun to make music with no expectations and no deadlines. It’s glorious to create worlds. This is from a session at Spacebomb a few days ago. Make weird music, y’all. It’s imperative.

I was driving home from Richmond in the rain the other day and I wanted to listen to something quiet. Something with low singing; something whispery. I guess there’s lots of music that can scratch that itch, but I put on the Velvet Underground’s self-titled record from 1968, the one with “What Goes On” and “Pale Blue Eyes” and all those beautiful Lou Reed songs that are so full of pathos and swagger. As it turns out, the record gets a little rowdy at times, but it fit itself to the mood in the car. The longer I listened, the more I thought about something I had written many years earlier. I had to really plumb the depths of my brain about what it was, but by the time the Velvet’s “Jesus” came on, I realized it was a song called “Mississippi Babe” that was written around the time of Hallelujah Anyhow. There’s more about this song for subscribers below the paywall. Suffice to say, I’m glad to have found it again. It feels like an old hymn I used to sing.

(I was just recently watching sunsets and eating oysters and seeing big, huge oak trees down around Charleston with my family.)

Oh, also, I buried some kind of lede! I’m going on tour with my friend Taylor Goldsmith! These will be collaborative shows, both of us playing each others’ songs. I’m really excited about this one, I think Taylor is one of the greats. You can find tickets HERE. If you want to buy them NOW—which you should—use the presale code MARCH. Easy peasy. Remaining tickets go onsite tomorrow at 10 AM.

True heads should continue down below, where you can hear an unreleased Hallelujah Anyhow-era Hiss tune called “Mississippi Babe.”