DAN FOGELBERG 1951-2007

I know. I've been absent for a long time. You might expect me to come back to you with a reaction to Barack's surge in the early primary states, or with a comment on faith and politics via Romney and Huckabee, or with my take on Oprahlooza. Sadly, I return with the news that a great songwriter has left us. I have to admit I haven't followed Fogelberg's career enough lately to know that he was suffering from prostate cancer, or that he had dropped out of live performing three years ago, due to his illness.

Few people will step up and anoint him the songwriter of a generation, or point to him as a trailblazing musician; but most of us who love music can point to his influence in our lives. Even if it is nothing more than the top-40 hits from his 1981 album The Innocent Age ("Run for the Roses," "Leader of the Band," "Same Old Lang Syne"), all of us have probably been affected by this extraordinary artist.

It is a little more personal for me. I only saw the man in concert once, but there was one performance of his I'll never forget. It was a wet night in the summer of 1985. I was sitting on a screened-in porch with my girlfriend, watching it rain. The old Pioneer turntable playing in the background had this really cool repeat function that allowed you to play the same side of an album multiple times. Side A of Fogelberg's "High Country Snows" played over and over and over again, for probably an hour or so, while I screwed up the courage to ask this lovely woman to be my wife. She said yes. I have always given Dan some credit for the grace shed on me that night.

It's only fitting that I mention his death here, since--some of you may remember--Dan Fogelberg was the first songwriter I ever quoted on this blog...my very first post.

I have to leave you with the lyrics from his song, "The Reach:"


It's Maine, and it's Autumn, the birches have just begun turning
It's life and it's dying
The lobstermen's boats come returning with the catch of the day in their holds
And the young boy is cold and complaining
The fog meets the beaches and out on the Reach it is raining
It's father and son, it's the way it's been done since the old days
It's hauling by hand ten miles out from the land where their chow waits
And the days are all lonely and long and the seas grow so stormy and strong but...
The Reach will sing welcome as homeward they hurry along

(Chorus)

And the morning will blow away as the waves crash and fall
And the Reach like a siren sings as she beckons and calls
As the coastline recedes from view and the seas swell and roll
I will take from the Reach all that she has to teach to the depths of my soul
The wind brings a chill, there's a frost on the sill in the morning
It creeps through the door
On the edge of the shore ice is forming
Soon the northers will bluster and blow
And the woods will be whitened with snowfall
And the Reach will lie frozen for the lost and unchosen to row

(Chorus)


Dan Fogelberg, may you reach no more.
May you discover what a heaven is for.