You can now reserve your private link for Over the Rhine‘s upcoming Valentine’s Concert Special. Join us as we revisit 30 years worth of love songs of all shapes and sizes, filmed and recorded in our old farmhouse and in the loft of the 1870s barn across the driveway that we have been restoring with your generous help. Make plans to get cozy, and join us!
https://stores.portmerch.com/.../otr-valentines-concert.html
We will also be offering a virtual songwriting workshop on February 13, hosted by Old Town School Of Folk Music.
https://www.oldtownschool.org/classes/detail/?courseid=6818
You can pour a glass of something good, find a comfortable chair, and read all about it in the letter from Linford and Karin below...
Good morning,
Snow covers the ground in Ohio. The sunrise was ablaze and wrapped around much of the horizon to the north. The silver wolf moon slipped behind the western tree line and disappeared.
My mother taught us that each and every sunrise is significant, a new start, something extravagant, merciful. “If you miss one, you miss a lot,” she would say.
The bird feeders were a little barren, so I restocked everything this morning (20 degrees Fahrenheit in full sun) and washed out and refilled the heated bird bath. A small gang of starlings insists on being first in line for everything, often giving avian rough elbows to the finches (both golden and house), the nuthatches, cardinals, chickadees and woodpeckers. We fume at the starlings from the kitchen window, but can’t help but notice that the morning light makes even their dark feathers appear draped in bejeweled peignoirs. (And of course, we can’t begrudge them the miracle of their occasional murmurations, when they gather to darken and unravel the sky.)
We have been trying to settle in to midwinter, still sheltered in place on our small farm in Ohio. The dogs get us out for a daily walk around the wild edges in spite of any weather.
We will confess that we have been fending off some late-January blahs, the cement skies often heavy and low. We weathered an ice storm last Monday, which made everything both within and without feel brittle and on edge. Karin grieved the bones of the white pines snapping like unfortunate femurs. I pulled the downed branches to the brush pile the next day. No mortal wounds, but wounds nonetheless.
Like any decent songwriter, we hope to turn the blahs into the blues. The blahs are a big waste of time. The blues are useful, a deep lament beyond time raised in praise of the mutilated world.
I once confessed to a friend, that I feared that every song Karin and I had ever written was a love song. He responded, But you don’t just write about falling in love, you write about what happens further down the road.
We received that as a blessing.
C.S. Lewis identified at least four different kinds of love: Romantic love, eros, that swift current that we all long to drown in from time to time. Friendship, something subtler, but deep and enduring. Agape — the abiding love of God for all creation. And the love we have for family — blood or chosen.
There are certainly more categories.
Dogs, for one. (Lewis also believed that dogs went to heaven.)
Love for the sky, the unpaved earth, the larger natural world. (Who hasn’t felt something akin to love, when struck with the night sky, milky with bright stars?)
And we would add grief, which someone described as “love with no place to go…”
And here’s the thing: We have suitcases packed full of love songs in all shapes and sizes. And we have no place to go.
Last December, we recorded some music right here at home — in the old farmhouse and across the driveway in the barn, a barn full of dreams still under construction. It felt so good to share a few songs, and your response was just incredible. It’s only the end of January, but we hope you don’t mind too much if we try this all again.
This Sunday evening a small film crew (safety protocols well in place) will once again arrive here at the farm. Karin and I will gather around the piano with a few acoustic instruments and lean in.
Then we’ll go on tour, and walk across the driveway to the barn, and see what we can capture in the old loft, the creative home base we have been building together with your help.
We’ll see if we can feel the river of love that flows beneath and through it all. Maybe we’ll even give St. Valentine a high five at some point.
We hope you’ll join us for some 30 years of infamous love songs. We’ll go back to the very beginning for a few early attempts, and work our way right through to this surreal season we find ourselves in.
We weren’t quite sure what to call it:
“Infamous Love Songs” (we already used this with the ballet)
“Love In The Time Of Corona” (feels a bit tired)
“Roses and Barbed Wire” (Karin likes this one. Can you tell we’ve been self-isolating perhaps a little too long?)
We are open to your suggestions.
In the meanwhile, we decided just to keep it simple. So without further ado:
You can reserve your private link to the Over the Rhine Valentine’s Day Concert Special here:
https://stores.portmerch.com/.../otr-valentines-concert.html
Next friday (a week before Valentine’s Day) we’ll email you a note with info that will allow you to view the concert anytime, and as often as you like for four weeks, between Saturday, February 6 at noon, Eastern, and Saturday, March 6 at midnight. Music for your midwinter.
(We’ll also stream the concert once at 3pm on Valentines Day, Sunday, February 14, at 3pm Eastern. All are welcome to participate.)
Thanks to a few generous individuals, all donations will once again be matched with 0% interest funds to help us reach the finish line with our barn venue. Our goal is to be able to begin gathering together again as soon as it is safe to do so. Music, conversation, some healing — we all need it. We can’t wait to see you on the farm and share all the progress. We are getting there.
One other musical announcement to share:
Just in case you have a creative valentine who needs a dose of inspiration: Old Town School of Folk Music will be hosting Karin and I for a two hour virtual songwriting workshop on Saturday, February 13, 2021.
Join us for a deep dive into the beautiful mystery called songwriting. We will share some of the most important and useful things we’ve learned in the last 30 years as songwriters, recording artists and touring musicians. We’ll also perform several of our songs.
We believe the workshop experience is all about taking a few steps forward in your songwriting life, regardless of whether you are just starting out, or have been writing and recording for years. Also, based on previous feedback, the workshop is helpful to writers of any persuasion, not just songwriters. If you don’t consider yourself a songwriter, but love music and records, this workshop will deepen your ability to listen.
https://www.oldtownschool.org/classes/detail/?courseid=6818
Well, we will call the above all the news that’s fit to sing at the moment. More announcements coming soon. There is still so much music left to be made.
Feeling grateful for our extended musical family.
Stay strong,
Linford and Karin