Some songs move into your soul and refuse to leave.
One of those is on the brand new CD by Stephen Fearing called Yellowjacket (True North Records).
It's called "Johnny's Lament." Like a lot of good tunes, it sounds on first listening as if you've heard it a thousand times before. Maybe that's the essence of transcendent songs.
It's a piece written from the point of view of someone who's been awake all night, haunted by the demons of the past and the uncertain prospects of the future. "So I lie on my back/ And wait for the sun/The water colour morning bringing roses for the dawn" says one of many memorable lines.
It is truly a lament, with Fearing's stunning guitar work and husky vocal invoking the heavy sense of loss.
Despite the title, it was only when I had a chance to talk to Fearing, who appeared recently at the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga, that I realized the inspiration for the song. Then things became a lot clearer.
Although there are no specific references in the piece to him, the song is for the late Johnny Cash, the genre-busting rockabilly/rock/folk/country/roots artist who defied all musical boundaries and crossed 'em all at one time or other.
Fearing watched a DVD about Cash's life in which the late singer said, "Sometimes at night/When I hear the wind/I wish that I was crazy again."
Those became the opening lines of Johnny's Lament. On the documentary, Cash talked about a dark period in his life, in the midst of the worst of his numerous addictions, when he went up into the hills behind his Nashville home, crawled into a cave and lay down to die.
Eventually, after for who knows how long, Cash found the will to live and somehow made his way out of the labyrinth to the surface.
Johnny's Lament is sung from the point-of-view of the older, wiser man looking back on that surreal experience and, "crawling out of that hole toward the light."
The singer reflects on the wildness of his past, regretting it and wanting to relive it in equal parts.
It's a brilliant song full of human contradictions that nicely matches the spirit of the complicated man who inspired it.