Remembering Dave Carter

Seven is the num­ber of a man

Seven years ago today a man I never met died. The sting of it lingers even now. Close mem­bers of my own fam­ily have died, and I have grieved and healed and gone on liv­ing, full of their mem­o­ries, but the death of this one ran­dom per­son leaves me undone every time I think of it. I am begin­ning to sus­pect that I always will be.

I count the days in cups of wine and can­dles I have burned

Dave Carter & Tracy Gram­mer, 2000 Fal­con Ridge Folk Fes­ti­val
–photo by George Green (thanks!)

He was a song­writer named Dave Carter. I don’t expect you to under­stand; as it is, I feel an urge to apol­o­gize for the inten­sity of this loss, I resist the impulse to add “just” to that last sen­tence. He was “just” this song­writer, you know? It’s weird to still count the days, seven years on, even if you love music. Yet I know I am not the only one feel­ing a lit­tle lost this day.

He wrote what he called “post­mod­ern mythic Amer­i­can” music. It’s the kind of acoustic, lit­er­ate music that earns com­par­isons to Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Townes Van Zandt. I love it for its irrev­er­ence, its com­pas­sion, and its hum­ble, wry won­der at the world.

Many who love Dave Carter’s music speak of it in terms of hav­ing uncov­ered a secret trea­sure, all their own. His sin­gu­lar abil­ity to write songs that res­onate on a deeply per­sonal level makes us a bit pro­tec­tive of him, makes us want to share it with the world so his mem­ory won’t fade. It is one of the few things about which I am evangelical.

Love is a light in the sky, and an unspo­ken lie, and a half-whispered prayer

I first heard Dave Carter and his part­ner Tracy Gram­mer as the open­ing act at a Joan Baez show. When Dave started telling sto­ries, even before they began to sing, I felt like he was shar­ing the truth with me, gen­tle and hor­ri­ble and silly, undi­luted. This scrawny banjo player with an afro of curls and a wist­ful inflec­tion had per­ceived through the haze of this world at least a slant of light and seemed to want every­one else to glimpse it too. He called all of his songs “true sto­ries,” and talk­ing about every one of them unearthed a dozen more true sto­ries, more char­ac­ters he’d met and places he’d been.

What I remem­ber best is “Tan­gle­wood Tree.” Dave began with a sim­ple obser­va­tion that became a chant before turn­ing into a ser­mon that turned into the song. Just when I thought it was per­fect, Tracy’s vio­lin came trilling like rev­e­la­tion just before the bridge.

Mother the years pass outta countin’ but no prophet comes to com­fort me

We live in an absurd, joy­ous, some­times fright­en­ing world, often unfor­giv­ing, and what I look to for faith are the things that give me strength or joy or peace. I believe in trees, still­ness, words, and my friends. I’ve been think­ing of music in that con­text ever since I heard Dave Carter & Tracy Gram­mer. It was like find­ing the Rosetta Stone; they made the way I thought about my life make more sense and assured me, once and for all, that every­thing is worth another look, and another. They let me hear what it sounds like in my head.

I don’t think it’s sad­ness that I feel at Dave Carter’s depar­ture from this world. He may be a lit­tle harder to find but the things he illu­mi­nated are still shin­ing. I am burst­ing with the light myself, so there is lit­tle room for grief over his absence. Maybe that’s because Dave’s not actu­ally the source of the light. He’s the guy behind the scenes shov­ing things out of shadow so the rest of us can see them. The more we see, the more we’re able to see. We need not rely on him to con­tinue seek­ing revelation.

I will lay my bur­dens in the cra­dle of your grace

I wish, oh I wish, Dave Carter had gone on shar­ing new aspects of his gift with us for years to come. His task was an unend­ing one, so of course it feels like it was pre­ma­turely arrested, because the work of untan­gling the world can never be fin­ished. The long­ing for new Dave Carter music and the new under­stand­ing that comes with it brings me to the brink on days like this. Then I remem­ber: his gift is gen­er­a­tive. Oth­ers have been stirred to share their own new visions of the world because of the words Dave Cater wrote. That trib­ute keeps him as present now as he ever was, and my lament only delays its fur­ther uncovering.

So I keep on look­ing. I remem­ber Dave Carter, with a swelling grate­ful heart. Fol­low­ing Tracy’s lead after his death, I com­mit myself to shar­ing this music with every­one who will lis­ten. I do my best to cel­e­brate the union of words and melody and all the things they touch. I hope you’ll join the chorus.