If only I’d known

I think it was the mid 1990’s that a friend invited me to come with him to see Nanci Griffith and the Blue Moon Orchestra play at the then Point Depot in Dublin. I didn’t know much of her music then and, as she walked out on the stage, she was tiny. She came from Texas, and throughout the 1990’s she enjoyed extraordinary success in Ireland. She supported other female artists and they played together on a bestselling album called a ‘Woman’s Heart.’

She seemed to understand Irish people and fell in love with them, and they with her. She shared stories on stage and in her songs and, although she was tiny in stature, she had this enormous and magnetic stage presence.

I watched a powerful documentary about Nanci Griffith this week called ‘From a Distance.’ Her interpretation of this particular song is very well known and, in the documentary two of her godchildren, one Irish and one American, shared memories of this very special woman in their lives as they were growing up.

Other musicians from both sides of the Atlantic, record producers and friends shared their memories and painted a picture of her love for performing, how she gave completely of herself to people and, in particular, her audiences, during live performances and her struggles with fame and success.

She was a very talented songwriter in her own right and tried to capture a sense of places that were important to her, particularly her home state of Texas and her adopted home in Ireland.

While she enjoyed great success in Ireland, she was never appreciated to the same degree in her home country, and her lack of commercial success there led to feelings of great insecurity. She wondered if people really liked her and if she was any good and, at a certain point after she returned to live in the United States, she became a virtual recluse. She struggled in her personal relationships and, after her two marriages broke down, she found refuge in alcohol and died of alcoholism at the age of 68, in 2021.

One of her great friends, the Irish singer, Delores Keane, remembered performing with her in various places. She remembered her beauty and the purity of her voice and the anxiety that accompanied her throughout her musical career. A clip of them singing a duet together brought a tear to my eye as their harmonies soared together, and the audience felt as if they were singing this song and its story directly to them.

After Nanci left Ireland to build her career and share her music in the United States, they lost touch. When her career faltered a bit on that side of the Atlantic and she disappeared from circulation, no one seemed to realise how ill she was. She had experienced serious illness on a few occasions with cancer, but each time she recovered and managed to get herself on the road again.

Delores spoke of the shock of Nanci’s death and wishing she had known how ill she was. “If only I’d known,” she said, “I would have been over there to talk to her and hug her and hold her.”

Watching this documentary prompted me to revisit a collection of Nanci’s music that I have and, as I listened to her powerful songs with their themes of special places, love and loneliness, they touched something very deep within.

This tiny woman with her quirky stories, her mesmerising voice and her vulnerabilities and insecurities, shared with the world through her fabulous music. I loved the way she was remembered by her colleagues in the music industry, by friends and family. I loved the way she played in little towns and villages in Ireland that had never before had an international star in their midst, and how she delighted to treat her godchildren and take them backstage at her shows and spend time with them growing up.

Behind the success, however, was a loneliness captured in haunting songs like ‘Late Night Grand Hotel,’ ‘The Speed of the Sound of Loneliness,’ and ‘Just Another Morning Here.’

Let’s be attentive to what’s going on beneath the surface in our own lives and in the lives of those around us. Let’s remind ourselves of the love that is directed towards us by a God who made Himself vulnerable by sharing this earth with us and never gives up on us.

Can I ask you to pray for the family of Adelaide Dawson, whose funeral takes place on Thursday at 11 am. May they know God’s comfort and peace in their sad loss.

Look forward to speaking again soon.

Much love to everyone,

Jono.

Listen to the latest episode of ‘Bitesize Chunks of Faith’