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The New Songs
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The New Songs

by Dave HoekstraMarch 24, 2020

 

With all this time on his hands, he could get rid of the old songs.

After deep listens, many of them sounded too boastful. Others were sad. Too sad for now.

Just the other day he carried them upstairs from his basement. They weighed him down as he walked up the stairs. How could he have listened to these songs for so long?

Then, under the light of an early spring sun, he found the new songs. He heard tambourines in the alley. The old songs had collected dust but they turned into seeds of a new song. A child on a nearby tricycle hit every note. The old couple on their daily walk snuck within 5 1/2 feet of each other.

These were songs filled with heart and truth and love. They were for the doctors and nurses, the delivery people, the garbage workers, the postal workers, the journalists, the bartenders with warm tequila, the truckers and the diner staff who just the other day said thank you for the carryout.

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It wasn’t until this point in his life had he heard so many songs filled with purpose and faith.

Faith is calming

Purpose is an engine.

The new songs were not self-consuming, no, not at all. The empathy of the new songs made them for everyone. Their sound was so strong sometimes they even muted the church bells. He must save these songs. Like bunches of fresh tulips, they have been set in every room of his house. He takes them into his car. They are clean slates.

Someday when all this is over and he sees everyone again he will share what he found. And there will be all kinds of dancing. Cheek-to-cheek, the tango and even the Monkey Time.

And he will twist the night away into a new morning.

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About The Author
Dave Hoekstra
Dave Hoekstra is a Chicago author-documentarian. He was a columnist-critic at the Chicago Sun-Times from 1985 through 2014, where he won a 2013 Studs Terkel Community Media Award. He has written books about heartland supper clubs, minor league baseball, soul food and the civil rights movement and driving his camper van across America.

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