Clarence Clemons suffered a stroke at age 69 and died two weeks ago. Because I have been driving and flying all around the Northwest during this time, I have neglected to pay proper homage here to the man who epitomized for me one of life’s “perfect moments”. I can do no better than draw from an old essay I wrote on “Ironman Music by the Lake”, songs I listened to around 2004 on the shore of Lake Coeur d’Alene one very hot evening in June, the night before a race:
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Uh-oh. Jungleland. Now, there is nothing on the PLANET that gets to me like Clarence Cleamons’ sax solo here. EVERY time I hear that, I get transported. The version I’ve burnt on this disc is the live one, when it seems to take forever. I could live in those notes, just stop in time and feel that rising breath, the backing band, Bruce’s melody transmuted by the sax player’s vision. The drummer, building with the horn, cymbals urging Clarence to hold it just one moment longer, to raise his bar and pour all his passion, power, memory, courage, grace and skill into that one note, into one perfect moment. When it comes, I drain the tears down each cheek. Because I’m lying down, they water the grass under my head. Cheryl notices, and wipes them away.
I reflect, as Bruce finishes his opera about the Rat and the Barefoot Girl, that I’ve seen some perfect moments – a book, a movie, a sentence, a scene – something where an artist’s skill, his entire history, his self-confidence, all come together to transmit directly on the emotional throughway – no thought, no knowledge, just pure feeling. An artist performing, in the end for himself, to satisfy himself, achieving what he always knew he had in him. I know I’ve got a perfect race in me; I know what it would feel like, to go as fast, as hard as I can (not at top speed, but at the RIGHT speed) for the entire journey, for however long it has to be. I’ve seen athletes morph into artists, so I know it can be done: Florence Griffith Joyner in her Olympic 100 meter win, only thirty steps or so, but each one perfect; Greg Louganis, converting his body into a torquing, falling work of art; Lance Armstrong, pulling all his endless hours molding his body – muscles, heart, mind, spirit – and his machine – aero, light, an extension of himself – into a three week long collection of Perfect Moments. The speed, the achievement is not the goal; it’s the feeling of, “Yes. This time, this ONE time, I got it right. That’s what I can transform myself into, if only for this one race, this one moment in time”. Just like Clarence Cleamons did for those three minutes with his saxphone.
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If you haven’t listened for a while to this mini opera, “Jungleland”, in a while (or ever), it’s worth spending 99ยข to download the song from iTunes, or call it up from your own disc or vinyl, and show some respect for those three minutes from heaven, which I hope to have played along with my other Perfect Music Moments, at my wake.