Scoot Over
“Get off the stage, Cash, get off the stage,” Johnny used to say. The country-music legend, known for his growly delivery of born-from-real-life lyrics, found the line between “fairly average” and “truly one-of-a-kind” a razor thin tripwire. In the early 1990s, music producer Rick Rubin began recording Cash singing and strumming in Rubin’s living room. As he asked the musical storyteller to play the songs of his life, Rubin found himself mesmerized by the intimate connectivity of the lyrics pulsing through the man. After a while, the two decided that the informal sessions of self-expression would make an enduring album, so they set up to record. As soon as the light turned red, however, Rubin noticed a change in Cash. The iconic balladeer began performing instead of musically telling his truth.
Johnny Cash (circa 1968) by Dillan Stradlin
Part of his heart was missing.
Rubin, recognizing the omission, asked the singer to pause the “presentation” and throw himself back into the ring. Johnny immediately understood what his collaborative soulmate was saying and re-centered himself on the couch. “Get off the stage” became the oft-repeated mantra Johnny Cash employed to remind himself to not get in his own way.
Singers aren’t the only ones this happens to. The subtle realization that someone is (or might be!) listening . . . or watching . . . or reading . . . can clog the arteries of transmission regardless the size or type of the stage. Athletes sometimes remember where they are -- pitcher’s mound, World Series--and the artful, slippery slider loses its Je ne sais quoi. Preachers catch their likeness on the monitor, and though they recite book, chapter and verse verbatim, the message fails to land as Jesus intended it to. The writer wonders if the reader will love or hate the words she strings together; as a result the sentences clunk.
It's hard to serve two masters at one time.
Judy Garland preferred the edge of the stage to the center. The border served as a perch that brought her closer to the audience and the musicians in the pit, as well as the lyrics that she seemed to call up from the boards of the stage where she sat. This positioning kept her small enough to fit inside the words and notes she sang. It was her way of remaining a vessel for what she felt called to convey. If she was too much in the middle, there wasn’t room enough for the song.
“Scoot over,” the work reminds us. “Please stay out of the way.”