Tom from AA

The planxty is about as high a form as one can get, and while this isn’t a planxty in a traditional, musical sense, Tom deserves a tune.

Tom is, indeed, just Tom as far as I know, and I did meet him in AA. His bottom–how low he went, that is, not his hind–as far as I can tell was a lot lower than most people’s. I imagine he’s in his late forties. He’s been homeless for years at a time and has I believe been to at least jail if not prison. He has real difficulty reading, which is not just a matter of education but vision: he has a large print edition of the Big Book. That said, he never passes when it’s his turn to read, even if he only reads part of a paragraph. Some days he’s more up to struggle with text than others. Tom is intensely sweet and now lives with his parents. Unfortunately, they’re moving within the month to Arizona, and he’ll no longer be a part of our meeting, except in spirit. He will have one year of sobriety next Sunday.

As far as the tune goes, I improvised the melody a bit over a week ago and recorded a scratch demo of it for myself. Today I took the time to record it. I have always been a fan of the long fade out and false ending on “Strawberry Fields Forever,” and here I used penny whistles as I often will doubled and panned 75% left and right in hommage. I recorded these two backwards, though it’s not obviously so when listening.

I am more and more happy to be playing drums and percussion, and feel like whatever musical conglomerate I form next will be best served with numerous percussionists.