Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 34-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
Jarred Up is a compilation of singles, but without looking, I can’t say where “One More Safe” was originally released. I’m not sure if we ever played it live. David’s guitar is beautiful. It reminds me a bit of “Throw Silver,” and it’s possible I wrote the lyrics on the spot as I was realizing that. It isn’t about love lost or found or a specific injustice that sometimes reveals larger truths. It’s about the stories we tell. Their importance. More from the teller’s point of view. If there was a visual for it, there’d be something representing the story scampering, ducking and diving, across dangerous territory toward something that represented … what? Being heard? Or simply succeeding in releasing a significant tale.
It’s bittersweet that “Throw Silver” is probably our best-liked song. Here’s me: the angry feminist agitator writing lyrics about injustice, and the song that sticks to the ribs of the choirs we preach to is an ambiguous tangle of jumbled metaphors about blue and yellow, going away and returning home, silver and gold, yesterday and today. Tragic! Yet it connected with people, and it taught me a lesson about the nature of conceptual communication that happens while music plays. Even when it’s political, it doesn’t have to be literal. There’s one more story safe.
“One More Safe” from Jarred Up (K, 1993) (download):
