Dear David,
Every time i don't look at this board for a few days, i come back and something amazing is going on. Well, the last thing i expected to see was you offering Scott a job. He is an old friend of mine-- i've known him since high school where we were two years apart. For the better part of a lovely year ('93-'94), we dated. He introduced me to your music-- somehow he'd picked up a copy of Triage (with the intros). More on that in a second.
It seems so right that Scott should come and work with you. i hope it happens. It wouldn't seem modest if he said it himself (and he never would), but he has more than a streak of musical genius in him. Music is in his blood, woven through his fingers, connected to his spirit. He truly loves it with every fiber of his soul and sinew, enough to dedicate his life to its creation and nurturing. Through the years we have both grown and changed a lot, but we are still good friends and share a common spark. I know you don't know me, but i feel like i owe him at least this "reference," should it make any difference. I hope you'll call him up (if you haven't already) and see if your paths are fated to cross.
Ok-- now a bit of auto-bio from one of the few females on this list (yeah, i'd noticed that too). I've always been a Christian, what you would call a born-again, if that word has any positive connotation left at all (probably not). Through high school i listened primarily to Christian music, very little of which i still give a spin. I liked other music too, much of which I got from Scott and our other good friend Crista, who introduced me to Progressive and Classic Rock. Scott put Secret Silken World on a mix tape for me, and I was hooked-- entranced-- intrigued. I acquired Triage soonafter. I suppose that was sometime in '93... when you could actually find "Baerwald" in the record racks in music stores, in between "Bad Religion" and "Joan Baez." (i will never forget that, from all the years of checking to see if MAYBE David Baerwald had anything new out!) Anyway, Triage was constantly in my CD player, because for the first time i had some "angry music." Not just senseless anger, but anger i could identify with-- what i've heard called "righteous anger"-- bourne of the frustration with all that is wrong with the world. It felt so good to hear music that was, as you said, stripped of all denial. I hadn't realized how hungry i was for it until i owned that CD with the blood-stained hands, which stood out so violently from the majority of my music collection. I remember thinking of you when i read a book by psychologist Larry Crabb, who wrote that everyone fell somewhere in-between two personality types-- the "shallow copers" and the "troubled reflectors." I probably don't have to explain the difference-- the copers face the day with denial, persuing mainly entertainment and material goods to distract themselves from the sadness and disappointments of life-- 'coping' any way that they can. The "reflectors" dare to face the pain of this world, no matter how unpleasant. It is the classic choice between ignorance and bliss/truth and sorrow. Yet the coper lives in a cage of disillusionment and ultimately, discontent, while the reflector at least lives in reality and can experience a far greater range of real emotion, both high and low. "Secret Silken World" could be interpreted as one man's journey from being a coper to a reflector.
Gone was the myth that as a Christian i always had "to be happy, or risk being 'a bad witness'." Here was the understanding that if i was really following Christ, i would open myself to the suffering of the world and admit that very few things make sense. That complete happiness will never come in this world, but that there is hope. That "human justice" is often a hoax.
You were, to me, the hero of the troubled reflectors. I felt almost that we were friends, two of a kind. My heart has always ached for so many sadnesses in the world, as is evident that yours does as well. The more you find out how people have mistreated other people, the more the sadness grows-- the embodiment of which i found on the back cover of Triage. Your words from the Triage introductions struck a chord with me... "So how does one live once one finds out... this stuff? Murder, no. Suicide, no. You live, and to do that you... love. And that's the bottom line." And in another place, "You love those whom you can love... and you forgive the rest." (probably a paraphrase.) Your music helped me to keep my belief that God is love, but that here on Earth, God's only hands are my hands, and my willingness to let God work through me. This idea is hinted at in one of your songs on "AFM"-- i am blanking out on the song, but the lyrics say that man, not God, creates that which usually destroys us.
I stumbled upon your email address in '95 or '96 and wrote you an awkward, stumbling letter ("hi, are you David Baerwald, like, THE David Baerwald?...). A few days later i nearly passed out when I got a response from you, which I read in one of the college's computer labs. The fact of it being a crowded computer lab did not stop tears from rolling down my face, i was so touched. I think of that sometimes, now, when all of us are free to chat with you on this message board, so casual. It's kind of funny.
After graduating college in '97, i entered a volunteer program called Mercy Corps. For a year i worked in North Philadelphia in a homeless shelter called Project HOME. I wanted desperately to strip myself of all the denial i could, to see the worst and discover if my faith would endure. From the window of the city bus i rode to work, i would study the people outside. My walkman often accompanied me, and your music always seemed right to listen to as the bus passed through the broken-down streets and wind-bourne litter. "Hey, Stranger." "Sirens in the City." "Swallowed by the Cracks." "Nobody." "In The Morning." You were a close friend of mine that year. Even though i knew all your music by heart, it took on a new dimension to a girl from the suburbs near the Jersey Shore.
After my year of volunteering, i moved to Boston with a friend, and got a job with The Salvation Army, a great organization that i loved working with. A year later, i moved back to New Jersey since in May of 1999 i had gotten engaged to my boyfriend Phil, who i had been with since senior year of college (and who waited patiently through my Philadelphia and Boston years, God bless him). We were married January 29th, 2000. Our first dance was "Walk Through Fire," which has always been to me the most honest love song i've ever heard. Though i don't think it would sound half as sincere coming from the throat of anyone but yourself.
Well this has gone on a bit longer than i intended-- thanks if you or anyone else has actually gotten this far. Only two things remain to say:
1) I have to wonder if i was the only person saddened by your choice of song for the end of "A Fine Mess," "The Church of No Religion." Maybe i am misinterpreting the song as meaning "it is better to have no religion," when that is not what you meant. Maybe you are really saying that religion is misused and misunderstood a lot, to manipulate people and reinforce ignorance. I agree that that is often true, and that bad things are often done in the name of Jesus, and Mohammed, and probably whomever else you can name-- but that's no reason to throw it all out. Coupled with "Biggest Whore in Babylon," (which i don't know if anyone has commented on yet) the two seem to give an ending that just doesn't flow (though i know the album was more of a mishmosh than a highly-refined presentation). Well, if i don't like the song it is my problem, and i don't expect you to write out anything because it might not groove with some people. All that set aside, i have to wonder if you've ever met anyone who you felt had true faith, and lived it-- or only people with selfish motives who put you down and judged you for not following their own creed.
2) Of course you are sexy! One thing girls can't resist (at least this girl) is a voice that contains so much passion, power, and honesty. That, coupled with the fact that your songs can be angry, like The Got-No-Shotgun Hydrahead Octopus Blues, where you spit out the vocals and sound almost crazed. A few tracks later you can be equally powerful but in a loving, sensitive way, as in "Born For Love." Girls love guys who are not ashamed to admit they HURT, like "A Bitter Tree." I have heard guys get mad because girls want them to be badass and sensitive at the same time, as if this is unattainable. This is not the case, in my eyes. I love to watch my husband spar in his Tae Kwon Do class, see him powerfully strike out at a target... while imagining those same hands which will be so gentle on my body later. This is how i envision you, and the side i love best about you-- you have so many facets to your music and personality, but all of them absolutly genuine.
To the greatest extent possible, i hope we'll always be friends. May the True God bless you.
Yours too,
Melanie
everything bagel
T
tamajinn (melanie)
(view)
Dear David,
Every time i don't look at this board for a few days, i come back and something amazing is going on. Well, the last thing i expected to see was you offering Scott a job. He is an old friend of mine-- i've known him since high school where we were two years apart. For the better part of a lovely year ('93-'94), we dated. He introduced me to your music-- somehow he'd picked up a copy of Triage (with the intros). More on that in a second.
It seems so right that Scott should come and work with you. i hope it happens. It wouldn't seem modest if he said it himself (and he never would), but he has more than a streak of musical genius in him. Music is in his blood, woven through his fingers, connected to his spirit. He truly loves it with every fiber of his soul and sinew, enough to dedicate his life to its creation and nurturing. Through the years we have both grown and changed a lot, but we are still good friends and share a common spark. I know you don't know me, but i feel like i owe him at least this "reference," should it make any difference. I hope you'll call him up (if you haven't already) and see if your paths are fated to cross.
Ok-- now a bit of auto-bio from one of the few females on this list (yeah, i'd noticed that too). I've always been a Christian, what you would call a born-again, if that word has any positive connotation left at all (probably not). Through high school i listened primarily to Christian music, very little of which i still give a spin. I liked other music too, much of which I got from Scott and our other good friend Crista, who introduced me to Progressive and Classic Rock. Scott put Secret Silken World on a mix tape for me, and I was hooked-- entranced-- intrigued. I acquired Triage soonafter. I suppose that was sometime in '93... when you could actually find "Baerwald" in the record racks in music stores, in between "Bad Religion" and "Joan Baez." (i will never forget that, from all the years of checking to see if MAYBE David Baerwald had anything new out!) Anyway, Triage was constantly in my CD player, because for the first time i had some "angry music." Not just senseless anger, but anger i could identify with-- what i've heard called "righteous anger"-- bourne of the frustration with all that is wrong with the world. It felt so good to hear music that was, as you said, stripped of all denial. I hadn't realized how hungry i was for it until i owned that CD with the blood-stained hands, which stood out so violently from the majority of my music collection. I remember thinking of you when i read a book by psychologist Larry Crabb, who wrote that everyone fell somewhere in-between two personality types-- the "shallow copers" and the "troubled reflectors." I probably don't have to explain the difference-- the copers face the day with denial, persuing mainly entertainment and material goods to distract themselves from the sadness and disappointments of life-- 'coping' any way that they can. The "reflectors" dare to face the pain of this world, no matter how unpleasant. It is the classic choice between ignorance and bliss/truth and sorrow. Yet the coper lives in a cage of disillusionment and ultimately, discontent, while the reflector at least lives in reality and can experience a far greater range of real emotion, both high and low. "Secret Silken World" could be interpreted as one man's journey from being a coper to a reflector.
Gone was the myth that as a Christian i always had "to be happy, or risk being 'a bad witness'." Here was the understanding that if i was really following Christ, i would open myself to the suffering of the world and admit that very few things make sense. That complete happiness will never come in this world, but that there is hope. That "human justice" is often a hoax.
You were, to me, the hero of the troubled reflectors. I felt almost that we were friends, two of a kind. My heart has always ached for so many sadnesses in the world, as is evident that yours does as well. The more you find out how people have mistreated other people, the more the sadness grows-- the embodiment of which i found on the back cover of Triage. Your words from the Triage introductions struck a chord with me... "So how does one live once one finds out... this stuff? Murder, no. Suicide, no. You live, and to do that you... love. And that's the bottom line." And in another place, "You love those whom you can love... and you forgive the rest." (probably a paraphrase.) Your music helped me to keep my belief that God is love, but that here on Earth, God's only hands are my hands, and my willingness to let God work through me. This idea is hinted at in one of your songs on "AFM"-- i am blanking out on the song, but the lyrics say that man, not God, creates that which usually destroys us.
I stumbled upon your email address in '95 or '96 and wrote you an awkward, stumbling letter ("hi, are you David Baerwald, like, THE David Baerwald?...). A few days later i nearly passed out when I got a response from you, which I read in one of the college's computer labs. The fact of it being a crowded computer lab did not stop tears from rolling down my face, i was so touched. I think of that sometimes, now, when all of us are free to chat with you on this message board, so casual. It's kind of funny.
After graduating college in '97, i entered a volunteer program called Mercy Corps. For a year i worked in North Philadelphia in a homeless shelter called Project HOME. I wanted desperately to strip myself of all the denial i could, to see the worst and discover if my faith would endure. From the window of the city bus i rode to work, i would study the people outside. My walkman often accompanied me, and your music always seemed right to listen to as the bus passed through the broken-down streets and wind-bourne litter. "Hey, Stranger." "Sirens in the City." "Swallowed by the Cracks." "Nobody." "In The Morning." You were a close friend of mine that year. Even though i knew all your music by heart, it took on a new dimension to a girl from the suburbs near the Jersey Shore.
After my year of volunteering, i moved to Boston with a friend, and got a job with The Salvation Army, a great organization that i loved working with. A year later, i moved back to New Jersey since in May of 1999 i had gotten engaged to my boyfriend Phil, who i had been with since senior year of college (and who waited patiently through my Philadelphia and Boston years, God bless him). We were married January 29th, 2000. Our first dance was "Walk Through Fire," which has always been to me the most honest love song i've ever heard. Though i don't think it would sound half as sincere coming from the throat of anyone but yourself.
Well this has gone on a bit longer than i intended-- thanks if you or anyone else has actually gotten this far. Only two things remain to say:
1) I have to wonder if i was the only person saddened by your choice of song for the end of "A Fine Mess," "The Church of No Religion." Maybe i am misinterpreting the song as meaning "it is better to have no religion," when that is not what you meant. Maybe you are really saying that religion is misused and misunderstood a lot, to manipulate people and reinforce ignorance. I agree that that is often true, and that bad things are often done in the name of Jesus, and Mohammed, and probably whomever else you can name-- but that's no reason to throw it all out. Coupled with "Biggest Whore in Babylon," (which i don't know if anyone has commented on yet) the two seem to give an ending that just doesn't flow (though i know the album was more of a mishmosh than a highly-refined presentation). Well, if i don't like the song it is my problem, and i don't expect you to write out anything because it might not groove with some people. All that set aside, i have to wonder if you've ever met anyone who you felt had true faith, and lived it-- or only people with selfish motives who put you down and judged you for not following their own creed.
2) Of course you are sexy! One thing girls can't resist (at least this girl) is a voice that contains so much passion, power, and honesty. That, coupled with the fact that your songs can be angry, like The Got-No-Shotgun Hydrahead Octopus Blues, where you spit out the vocals and sound almost crazed. A few tracks later you can be equally powerful but in a loving, sensitive way, as in "Born For Love." Girls love guys who are not ashamed to admit they HURT, like "A Bitter Tree." I have heard guys get mad because girls want them to be badass and sensitive at the same time, as if this is unattainable. This is not the case, in my eyes. I love to watch my husband spar in his Tae Kwon Do class, see him powerfully strike out at a target... while imagining those same hands which will be so gentle on my body later. This is how i envision you, and the side i love best about you-- you have so many facets to your music and personality, but all of them absolutly genuine.
To the greatest extent possible, i hope we'll always be friends. May the True God bless you.
Yours too,
Melanie
Every time i don't look at this board for a few days, i come back and something amazing is going on. Well, the last thing i expected to see was you offering Scott a job. He is an old friend of mine-- i've known him since high school where we were two years apart. For the better part of a lovely year ('93-'94), we dated. He introduced me to your music-- somehow he'd picked up a copy of Triage (with the intros). More on that in a second.
It seems so right that Scott should come and work with you. i hope it happens. It wouldn't seem modest if he said it himself (and he never would), but he has more than a streak of musical genius in him. Music is in his blood, woven through his fingers, connected to his spirit. He truly loves it with every fiber of his soul and sinew, enough to dedicate his life to its creation and nurturing. Through the years we have both grown and changed a lot, but we are still good friends and share a common spark. I know you don't know me, but i feel like i owe him at least this "reference," should it make any difference. I hope you'll call him up (if you haven't already) and see if your paths are fated to cross.
Ok-- now a bit of auto-bio from one of the few females on this list (yeah, i'd noticed that too). I've always been a Christian, what you would call a born-again, if that word has any positive connotation left at all (probably not). Through high school i listened primarily to Christian music, very little of which i still give a spin. I liked other music too, much of which I got from Scott and our other good friend Crista, who introduced me to Progressive and Classic Rock. Scott put Secret Silken World on a mix tape for me, and I was hooked-- entranced-- intrigued. I acquired Triage soonafter. I suppose that was sometime in '93... when you could actually find "Baerwald" in the record racks in music stores, in between "Bad Religion" and "Joan Baez." (i will never forget that, from all the years of checking to see if MAYBE David Baerwald had anything new out!) Anyway, Triage was constantly in my CD player, because for the first time i had some "angry music." Not just senseless anger, but anger i could identify with-- what i've heard called "righteous anger"-- bourne of the frustration with all that is wrong with the world. It felt so good to hear music that was, as you said, stripped of all denial. I hadn't realized how hungry i was for it until i owned that CD with the blood-stained hands, which stood out so violently from the majority of my music collection. I remember thinking of you when i read a book by psychologist Larry Crabb, who wrote that everyone fell somewhere in-between two personality types-- the "shallow copers" and the "troubled reflectors." I probably don't have to explain the difference-- the copers face the day with denial, persuing mainly entertainment and material goods to distract themselves from the sadness and disappointments of life-- 'coping' any way that they can. The "reflectors" dare to face the pain of this world, no matter how unpleasant. It is the classic choice between ignorance and bliss/truth and sorrow. Yet the coper lives in a cage of disillusionment and ultimately, discontent, while the reflector at least lives in reality and can experience a far greater range of real emotion, both high and low. "Secret Silken World" could be interpreted as one man's journey from being a coper to a reflector.
Gone was the myth that as a Christian i always had "to be happy, or risk being 'a bad witness'." Here was the understanding that if i was really following Christ, i would open myself to the suffering of the world and admit that very few things make sense. That complete happiness will never come in this world, but that there is hope. That "human justice" is often a hoax.
You were, to me, the hero of the troubled reflectors. I felt almost that we were friends, two of a kind. My heart has always ached for so many sadnesses in the world, as is evident that yours does as well. The more you find out how people have mistreated other people, the more the sadness grows-- the embodiment of which i found on the back cover of Triage. Your words from the Triage introductions struck a chord with me... "So how does one live once one finds out... this stuff? Murder, no. Suicide, no. You live, and to do that you... love. And that's the bottom line." And in another place, "You love those whom you can love... and you forgive the rest." (probably a paraphrase.) Your music helped me to keep my belief that God is love, but that here on Earth, God's only hands are my hands, and my willingness to let God work through me. This idea is hinted at in one of your songs on "AFM"-- i am blanking out on the song, but the lyrics say that man, not God, creates that which usually destroys us.
I stumbled upon your email address in '95 or '96 and wrote you an awkward, stumbling letter ("hi, are you David Baerwald, like, THE David Baerwald?...). A few days later i nearly passed out when I got a response from you, which I read in one of the college's computer labs. The fact of it being a crowded computer lab did not stop tears from rolling down my face, i was so touched. I think of that sometimes, now, when all of us are free to chat with you on this message board, so casual. It's kind of funny.
After graduating college in '97, i entered a volunteer program called Mercy Corps. For a year i worked in North Philadelphia in a homeless shelter called Project HOME. I wanted desperately to strip myself of all the denial i could, to see the worst and discover if my faith would endure. From the window of the city bus i rode to work, i would study the people outside. My walkman often accompanied me, and your music always seemed right to listen to as the bus passed through the broken-down streets and wind-bourne litter. "Hey, Stranger." "Sirens in the City." "Swallowed by the Cracks." "Nobody." "In The Morning." You were a close friend of mine that year. Even though i knew all your music by heart, it took on a new dimension to a girl from the suburbs near the Jersey Shore.
After my year of volunteering, i moved to Boston with a friend, and got a job with The Salvation Army, a great organization that i loved working with. A year later, i moved back to New Jersey since in May of 1999 i had gotten engaged to my boyfriend Phil, who i had been with since senior year of college (and who waited patiently through my Philadelphia and Boston years, God bless him). We were married January 29th, 2000. Our first dance was "Walk Through Fire," which has always been to me the most honest love song i've ever heard. Though i don't think it would sound half as sincere coming from the throat of anyone but yourself.
Well this has gone on a bit longer than i intended-- thanks if you or anyone else has actually gotten this far. Only two things remain to say:
1) I have to wonder if i was the only person saddened by your choice of song for the end of "A Fine Mess," "The Church of No Religion." Maybe i am misinterpreting the song as meaning "it is better to have no religion," when that is not what you meant. Maybe you are really saying that religion is misused and misunderstood a lot, to manipulate people and reinforce ignorance. I agree that that is often true, and that bad things are often done in the name of Jesus, and Mohammed, and probably whomever else you can name-- but that's no reason to throw it all out. Coupled with "Biggest Whore in Babylon," (which i don't know if anyone has commented on yet) the two seem to give an ending that just doesn't flow (though i know the album was more of a mishmosh than a highly-refined presentation). Well, if i don't like the song it is my problem, and i don't expect you to write out anything because it might not groove with some people. All that set aside, i have to wonder if you've ever met anyone who you felt had true faith, and lived it-- or only people with selfish motives who put you down and judged you for not following their own creed.
2) Of course you are sexy! One thing girls can't resist (at least this girl) is a voice that contains so much passion, power, and honesty. That, coupled with the fact that your songs can be angry, like The Got-No-Shotgun Hydrahead Octopus Blues, where you spit out the vocals and sound almost crazed. A few tracks later you can be equally powerful but in a loving, sensitive way, as in "Born For Love." Girls love guys who are not ashamed to admit they HURT, like "A Bitter Tree." I have heard guys get mad because girls want them to be badass and sensitive at the same time, as if this is unattainable. This is not the case, in my eyes. I love to watch my husband spar in his Tae Kwon Do class, see him powerfully strike out at a target... while imagining those same hands which will be so gentle on my body later. This is how i envision you, and the side i love best about you-- you have so many facets to your music and personality, but all of them absolutly genuine.
To the greatest extent possible, i hope we'll always be friends. May the True God bless you.
Yours too,
Melanie
