Wherever She Goes

My introduction to Brushfire Fairytales is nothing short of real spirits at work. Ever since I was 5 years old I’ve been hushed to sleep by the lullabies of Jack Johnson. The songwriting surfer man from the North Shore of Hawaii has  consistently altered the way I think and feel, guiding my decisions like the inviting glow of a lighthouse, when you’re on the water and the land is dark. 

In September 11th 2001, my father was taken from us. I was only five years old at the time and the terror of that day in the city that never sleeps decided to keep us awake, night after night. Sleep or lack thereof became a huge concern in my fragmented home. In order to hush the tears of my family, friends, and myself, we turned to Brushfire Fairytales a record my father had bought only days prior. We found it one night on the passenger seat cleaning out his car. It was and is the most valuable article to every have been found in one of those miniature blue plastic bags you usually get at bodegas when you buy things mundane or insignificant. Every night for two years that album would sound. My mom, half of what she once was would pop the CD out of its cover. Stuck in a navy rain jacket under a torrential downpour with a five oclock shadow hiding his half baked grin;  it was as if Jack knew what we were going through and how we were going to get out. 

At the age of 7 when In between Dreams, Jack Johnson’s 2nd album, was given to me along with a CD player as a farewell gift from my family before my first time away from home. Off to summer camp for 4 weeks with only two CDS. I was amid the pines of New Hampshire, and although I fell hard over what would become classics like, Better Together, Banana Pancakes, and Sitting, Waiting Wishing. When the rain would fall on the tin roof, as it often does during New Hampshire summers, and my mind would stray to towers, terror, and fear it was that Brushfire Fairytales album that solaced me. 

The News, stripped down and escorted in by a simple finger picking pattern and melodic dreamy vocals still comes across my nightly mediation and I convince myself it was written for me and those affected by 9/11. It was as if he was calming us down from it all, months before it even happened. Foreshadowing in its most tranquil form. 

A billion people died on the news tonight 

But not so many cried at the terrible sight 

Well mama said 

It’s just make believe 

You can’t believe everything you see 

So baby close your eyes to the lullabies 

On the news tonight 

The weight of these lyrics is intentional and timelessly relevant.

The track that follows usually tends to dry the probable tears that have developed, as its acts as a well deserved foot tapping juxtaposition on the album. When I think of  “Drink the Water” I think of an off roading up beat ride, or maybe that’s just where you’ll find me listening to this. So, if your imagining me in my pickup with a shitgrin off roading with some gals in summit county, think again. We’re both wrong. This song is actually about a life altering surf injury Johnosn  suffered in the 90’s after getting smashed under a massive wave while attempting one of the most infamous breaks, Pipeline. Although the music is poppy and fun, the lyrics tell a different story. 

Hold on if you can 

You’re gonna sink faster 

Than you can imagine so hold 

Hold on if you can 

You’re gonna sink faster 

Than you can imagine so hold 

Jack Johnson ended up in a coma for a few days and suffered severe injuries to his ribs and face. It was in that moment where he decided to quit  is pursuit of surfing as a career and follow his long time passion of music and film making. Although he quit surfing, his “class” or group of friends he surfed with daily went on to become household names, and change the surf  industry forever. Kelly Slater, Rob Machado & Pat O’connell etc. 

It only takes a few moments to alter your life. For Johnson it’s more like three minutes. Nearly every song on this album (and throughout his whole discography) is somewhere around the three minute mark, leaving me to believe as a storyteller and songwriter there is a power in three. Nearly every track on Brushfire Fairytales, I can pin to a point in my life, like a footnote informing the reader of whatever Jack Johnson judgement I applied and why. 

The piano keys rocking back  and forth from left to right speaker on the final track of the album, Its all understood, guided me to make the decision to leave the east coast and everything I knew to come to Denver to pursue my two loves music and mountains. 

But it was the slides on Ben Harper’s guitar and Tommy Jordan’s Steele drums features on Flake, that I blared driving solo from NJ to Denver the summer before Freshman year as I attempt to hush by way harmonizing to the breaks and the repetition of ambiguous lyrics . 

Stranded on an island, I would need to be comforted so I could contemplate. “What the hell am I doing here?” or “Where did I come from?” After contemplation, I would need music that would let me dance, cry,  fall in love and let out my fear. Because there’s no way fear isn’t following my sandy bum to this metaphorical island.  

Brushfire Fairytales is more than just am album, it’s a lens that I wear to see the world and it circumstances more beautifully and have opted to never take off.