I'm coming to believe in the importance of silence in music. The power of silence after a phrase of music, for example: the dramatic silence after the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, or the space between the notes of a Miles Davis solo. There is something very specific about a "rest" in music. You take your foot off the pedal and pay attention. I'm wondering as musicians whether the most important thing we do is merely to provide a frame for silence. I'm wondering if silence itself is perhaps the mystery at the heart of music. And is silence the most perfect form of music of all? Songwriting is the only form of meditation I know. And it is only in silence that the gifts of melody and metaphor are offered.
My first remembered experience of the numinous occurred when I was barely three... The sun was shining, and as I walked along the dusty lane I became acutely aware of the things around me. I noticed a group of dandelions on my left at the base of a stone wall. Most of them were in full bloom, their golden heads irradiated by the sun, and suddenly I was overcome by an extraordinary feeling of wonder and joy. It was as if I was part of the flowers, and stones and dusty earth. I could feel the dandelions pulsating in the sunlight, and a timeless unity with all life.
