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I’m sit­ting on a bench in an empty room play­ing my gui­tar, when a silver-haired lady walks in and begins speak­ing to me.

EH: Hey, I rec­og­nize that song.
Me: Holy shit, are you Emmy­lou Har­ris?
EH: Yep. Scoot over and let me sit down. Keep play­ing. I like that song.
Me: I’m not really play­ing the song, just warm­ing up.
EH: Play it.

I clum­sily start to play.

EH: You’re not very good, are you? I don’t mean that to be insult­ing.
Me: I don’t see how that could not be insult­ing, but yeah, I suck.
EH: You should prac­tice more.
Me: That’s what I was doing when you showed up.
EH: You said you were warm­ing up.
Me: It’s all the same to me.
EH: That explains a lot.
Me: By the time I’m warmed up, I’m out of time to keep prac­tic­ing.
EH: Life is full of oppor­tu­ni­ties. You can either take the time or make an excuse.
Me: Who said that?
EH: I did, just now.

Awk­ward silence fol­lowed by even more awk­ward gui­tar playing.

Me: Why do you play such big gui­tars? Those things are fuck­ing huge.
EH: Hook­ers and blow, cow­boy. Hook­ers and blow.
Me: Huh?
EH: Man, you really need to prac­tice more. Give me that thing.

I hand her my gui­tar and Emmy­lou starts play­ing some amaz­ing music.

Me: I’m not really a per­former. I just write songs.
EH: Your lim­ited skills must really ham­per your abil­ity to express your­self.
Me: Tell me about it. It’s like writ­ing sto­ries in an unknown lan­guage.
EH: Music is the uni­ver­sal lan­guage, pal.
Me: I must be from another galaxy.
EH: Either over­come weak­ness or turn them to your advan­tage.
Me: What, are you like some walk­ing book of wis­dom? Where do you come up with this shit?

She starts singing Return of the Griev­ous Angel.

EH: Sing har­mony with me.
Me: I told you, I’m not a per­former.
EH: Har­mony is easy. Any­one can do it.
Me: That’s not true.
EH: No. It’s not.

She con­tin­ues singing, har­mo­niz­ing with her­self, while play­ing the most amaz­ing acoustic ver­sion of Griev­ous Angel I’ve ever heard.

Me: That’s incred­i­ble. Where’d you learn to do that?
EH: Eat­ing chicken pot pies, drink­ing moon­shine whiskey and breath­ing the cool moun­tain air.
Me: Some­how I doubt your sin­cer­ity.
EH: We’re all related spir­i­tu­ally, so what I know, at some level, you know as well. You just have to train your phys­i­cal body to respond to spir­i­tual prompt­ings. It’s sim­ple to under­stand and dif­fi­cult to accom­plish.
Me: And you learned that from eat­ing chicken pot pie –
EH: Drink­ing moon­shine whiskey and breath­ing the cool moun­tain air.
Me: Willie Nel­son is a big believer in tak­ing deep breaths.
EH: Who?

She begins play­ing Buck Owens’ Loves Gonna Live Here. The acoustic gui­tar has been replaced with a ’52 Tele­caster, and she’s wail­ing on the leads.

EH: I wrote this song in 1975.
Me: Buck Owens released that song in 1963.
EH: Oh.

She sud­denly stops and then starts play­ing Phan­tom, Rocker and Slick’s No Regrets.

EH: You really should prac­tice more. Your excuse sucks on par with your play­ing.
Me: Do they not teach man­ners where you’re from or are you mak­ing an excep­tion for me?
EH: Dude, I don’t even know you and I can see right through you. You’re like glass.
Me: Huh?
EH: Trans­par­ent and eas­ily shat­tered.
Me: Yeah, you don’t know me.

And then I woke up. Why Emmy­lou Har­ris? I have no idea. I enjoy her stuff but I’ve never been fanat­i­cal. What can I say? Dreams are weird.

I think my sub­con­scious is telling me that I need to prac­tice more often.

Tags: dream, emmy­lou har­ris, prac­tice