Over the Rhine, my favorite band, has been my favorite band for a long time.
I’ve been listening to them since a friend named Keith put a song named “Should” on a mixtape for me in high school.
I’ve seen them play in Cincinnati, Norwood, Dayton, and Columbus in standing room only dive bars, churches with great acoustics, tiny record stores with bad acoustics, riverfront parks, outdoor amphitheaters, and seated indoor theaters as a 4-piece band, a duo, a full band with backup singer(s), in the spring, summer, fall, and winter, during the daylight and the night.
Last fall, I took part in a songwriting workshop they hosted over a weekend near Wilmington, Ohio. I am not a song writer, or at least I wasn’t before that weekend. I was and remain more comfortable taking on the role of song listener, which I was assured upon workshop registration is an important role to take on. (If a song falls down in the woods and no one is around to hear it…)
The culminating experience was, of course, the chance to write a song in small groups and perform it for each other - putting into practice what we’d learned, and what we’d brought to the table with us.
The group I was in included a music listener whose day job at Penn State is being a research professor of fire and natural resources management. Dr. Kreye (we called him Jesse), taught us about prescribed fires and pyrophytes. Prescribed fires are basically exactly what they sound like - intentionally set and managed fires used to maintain, enhance, and support certain ecosystems. Pyrophytes are plants and trees that tolerate or even depend on fire to proliferate.
We all thought there was something pretty poetic about setting fires on purpose and with positive intention. To spread the kind of fire that heals more than it harms. The kind of fire you don’t run from. The kind of fire you need.
Good fire.
I shared more of my own story with my group (I’d shared a bit of it with the larger group - enough for them to have a sense of who I am and what I’m about). They latched on and it became a sort of anchor for the second verse, which is the verse I contributed the most lyrics to.
The learned musicians in our group, Charity Osborn (piano, vocals) and Dave Kerschbaum (guitar, vocals), did the musician-ing which was really cool to watch happen. Melody and chords started to meet up with words and breath. Our final group member, Sara Huron, also a music listener, documented and sent out the lyrics to us since each of us had different pieces and parts of the song on different parts and pieces of paper.
We practiced it a few times, and we were the first group to present our work.
If you had told me in 1993 that one day I’d stand in front of my favorite band with other “actual” musicians, and sing a verse of a song I’d just helped write, I wouldn’t have believed you.
And if you had told me in 1993 that the first words a member of my favorite band would reverently gasp would be “Holy shit” when the song was over, I wouldn’t have believed it.
And yet here we are.
It was an extraordinary chance to sit with and learn from the two musicians whose songs are so woven into my experience that I’d completely unravel without them.
Here are the lyrics, a video of the song as we performed it, and some photos from the weekend.
== Good Fire ==
by Matthew Dyer, Sara Huron, Dave Kerschbaum, Jesse Kreye, Charity Osborn
Lyrics
As the wind passed down through the morning canyon And a filtered light spread across the old pine trees. That hint of smoke came down as a reminder Of those calming words my grandma said to me.
She said, “All fires burn hard and hot. Some fire’s good; some is not.
Baby, that’s a good fire. Baby, that’s a good fire.
There’s something you should know That you really need to understand There are keepers of the flame That’s where it began It’s a good fire.”
It took a long time for my family to understand That the love I really needed had to come from another man. But when they saw the garden that you planted for me And all that hidden beauty pouring right out of the sumac tree. v All fires burn hard and hot. Some fire’s good; some is not.
Baby, it’s a good fire. Baby, it’s a good fire.
There’s something that I learned that I finally understand You can grow a garden out of blackened land.
It’s a good fire.
You thought you knew this place like the back of your hand You thought this town knew your name by heart You never thought you’d see those bridges burn But by firelight you found a pathway in the dark
All fires burn hard and hot Some fire’s good; some is not
But baby it’s a good fire, Baby, it’s a good fire.
When you lose your way in the dead of night You need a little flame to shed a little light
Baby, it’s a good fire.
All fires burn hard and hot Some fire’s good, some is not.
Video
Photos
