If you don’t believe in souls, you probably just haven’t listened to the right music yet.

There were four of us. We only had enough money for two tickets. And barely that. We knew the bartender who worked the bar across the street from the State Theatre in Minneapolis. He let us drink water for free in the corner booth. Two of us went to the first half of the Lyle Lovett concert. While the other two waited anxiously to switch at intermission. 

Oh how we loved his music. They hadn’t even labeled him yet as “alternative” — we weren’t looking for labels then, only experiences. We loved his music. It was different. Accepting. Stories that made you laugh. Feel. Glorious stories that were played loud and clear at the Loring cafe. Combined with too much coffee, we drank in each song and hopped from used velvet sofas to bursting overstuffed chairs, and we began creating our own stories. It was youth. It was permission.

Driving home from Marseille yesterday we were stuck in traffic. Our travel time tripled. I turned up Lyle’s Road to Ensenada. Even Dominique knows all the words. (I’ve played it before.) We sang loudly. No longer trapped, but transported. To Louisiana. Alabama. Texas. Open free flowing roads of love and heartbreak and laughter and youth. Words tangled and twisted in different directions — telling the familiar stories in the most unique ways. And there was no time. Only permission — permission for our souls to travel, to feel!  To be free!

John Prine puts me on the back of a motorcycle. Lucinda Williams in Lake Pontchartrain. Madeleine Peyroux strolls me through Paris. Paul Simon vacations me everywhere with Dominique. Frank Sinatra rests me on Sunday afternoons with my mother. I believe in souls. I’ve heard mine sing – “sings, how it rings in my ears…” 

Turn it up, my friends! Take your soul for a ride.