The Gabe Dixon Band

A pet peeve of mine is how there are, basically, only four kinds of television on these days after 8PM. There is reality TV, which, with the exception of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, is dung. There are shows about police (which are only barely grounded in truth). There are shows about intelligence operatives (which are only vaguely grounded in truth). And there are shows about lawyers (which are grounded in the lifework of Tyler Garrett Kidd). I hate all of them, not because anything is wrong with the genres, but because they are all just so damn overdone.

And because they are all Sarah wants to watch. Sigh.

Okay, moving on. All that said, with all my irrational biases in place, I can say that I still find myself wanting to watch the new NBC show Conviction. It is, as far as I can tell, about a magical world where new lawyers are all very pretty and trained in witty reparte. Also there is some self-righteousness and whining. Ally Mc-what? Whoop!

Obviously, I don't want to watch it for the plot. No, I want to watch it to catch snippets of the Gabe Dixon Band. They're consumate examples of why most of the great music coming out of 21st Century Nashville is doing so in the form of rock, not country-western. All you have to do is listen to their song "All Will be Well" to know that. Let me characterize their work: magnificent vocals, magnificent music (especially Dixon's keyboard artistry). Look at these lyrics:

The new day dawns,
And I am practicing my purpose once again.
It is fresh and it is fruitful if I win but if I lose,
Oooooo I don’t know.
I will be tired but I will turn and I will go,
Only guessing til I get there then I’ll know,
Oh oh oh I will know.

All the children walking home past the factories
Could see the light that’s shining in my window as I write this song to you.
All the cars running fast along the interstate
Can feel the love that radiates
Illuminating what I know is true,
All will be well.
Even after all the promises you’ve broken to yourself,
All will be well.
You can ask me how but only time will tell.

The winter’s cold,
But the snow still lightly settles on the trees.
And a mess is still a moment I can seize until I know,
That all will be well.
Even though sometimes this is hard to tell,
And the fight is just as frustrating as hell
All will be well.

All the children walking home past the factories,
Could see the light that’s shining in my window as I write this song to you.
All the cars running fast along the interstate
Can feel the love that radiates
Illuminating what I know is true
All will be well.
Even after all the promises you’ve broken to yourself
All will be well.
You can ask me how but only time will tell.

Keep it up and don’t give up
And chase your dreams and you will find
All in time.

All the children walking home past the factories
Could see the light that’s shining in my window as I write this song to you.
All the cars running fast along the interstate
Can feel the love that radiates
Illuminating what I know is true,
All will be well.
Even after all the promises you’ve broken to yourself,
All will be well.
You can ask me how but only time will tell.

All will be well.
Even after all the promises you’ve broken to yourself,
All will be well.
You can ask me how but only time will tell.

You can ask me how but only time will tell.

That's the whole song. I quote it all for you for one reason - frankly, its because I want you to understand that this is a hymn, like a medieval tune once perverted by bad folk singers and finally returned to grace. God its good, a requiem or a eulogy. Comforting even as it conjures images of bad times and hard people.

The Gabe Dixon Band's home site is here - they provide access to most of their music through iTunes. If you don't have or want the iTunes program (or, like me, can't use it at work), try their myspace.com site. They've got four great songs. . . including "All Will be Well."