It was 2016 — a decade ago, but what feels like a lifetime ago — when I would leave an exhausting day of work at the publisher on Hennepin Avenue, maybe grab a few groceries at Lunds, then weave my way, on foot, through Minneapolis Downtown West, Loring Park, and home to my studio apartment on La Salle. My stride was strong, if tired, and my trusty earbuds were in.

A song common to my playlists those days was “Hate Street Dialogue,” a remix by the French DJ and producer, The Avener. Listening to that song, I felt cooler than cool. With a punchy beat, gripping minor chord progression, gritty lyrics, and arrangement by an up-and-coming European DJ, the song accompanied me in my lonely, artsy cosmos. Donning my safe-but-individuated fashion sense, I strode, each day, down 12th Street, pivoted onto Harmon Place, continued through the Loring Greenway, and eventually ducked into the big, green park, the whole time occupying my own little world. Just me, my fantasies, and a soundtrack to dream to.

Little did I know that the original heart, soul, and voice of “Hate Street Dialogue” belonged to a Mexican-American musician who was born, lived, and died in Detroit, Michigan. His name was Sixto Rodriguez (1942-2023). Little did I know, too, that nearly 10 years later — two nights ago, after another long work week — I’d plop down to watch the documentary Searching for Sugar Man (2012) to discover this obscure but colossal musician.

“He approached the work from a different place than most people do. He took it very, very seriously. Sort of like a sacrament, you know? He was going to do this dirty, dirty work for eight or ten hours, okay? But he was dressed in a tuxedo. He had this kind of magical quality that all genuine poets and artists have, to elevate things. To get above the mundane, the prosaic. All the bullshit. All the mediocrity that’s everywhere. The artist, the artist is the pioneer. Even if his musical hopes were dashed, the spirit remained. And he just had to keep finding a place, refining the process of how to apply himself. He knew that there was something more.”

— Rick Emmerson, construction worker colleague of Sixto Rodriguez

The documentary was well done, and it inspired this post. Needless to say, I highly recommend it. And I’m trying, as I write this, to figure out what touched me the most, what reached me the furthest.

The music takes first chair. It must. Without the greatness of the music, the rest is null. The music here is the organizing force. If you like ‘70s-era, establishment-sick folk, that is. I listened to Rodriguez’s first two albums, Cold Fact (1970) and Coming From Reality (1971), on repeat yesterday and found great beauty in them. When the art is good, impact and legacy take care of themselves. Art can stand alone; all else is fanfare.

After sound, perhaps, is scene. The birthplace, the origin story. Detroit is a notoriously rough, rundown city, not to mention cold, icy, and hard-as-hell to survive when you’re working class. Rodriguez’s parents followed a wave of Mexican immigrants relocating to Motown during its industrial boom in the early 20th century. His family followed the work, and he walked the beat. He took the pulse, uncovered the gritty soul of the place. The city’s viscera, the human toil fueling the engine of industry, the relief and release through drugs and sex, love stories at ground level: Rodriguez’s observant, embodied tracks drip with these themes, these scenes.

“Met a girl from Dearborn,
Early six o’clock this morn
A cold fact
Asked about her bag,
Suburbia’s such a drag
Won’t go back
‘Cos Papa don’t allow
No new ideas here
And now he sees the news,
But the picture’s not too clear.”

— Inner City Blues, Rodriguez

When his music failed to launch, he carried on working construction and raising a family. This descent into relative obscurity is fascinating and surely the linchpin of the documentary’s plot line. We love an unsung genius because it assures us that we, too, could be one. It inspires us to continue nursing our unseen brilliance; reminds us that glory, while deserved, is not always forthcoming, and that, yes, the felled tree in the forest makes a sound, even if no one hears it.

There’s something even deeper about Rodriguez’s work ethic I feel here. It’s the idea that if someone is a craftsman in his bones, then he will operate and create with quality, integrity, and durability, no matter the product at hand. Rodriguez wrote a couple brilliant musical albums, but he also performed hard labor with sacred zest, knowing, instinctively, that the work of his soul through his hands would reverberate no matter the medium. This, to me, is heroic.

This power, this influence, occurs independently of fame. Countless unknown forebears have contributed to our wellbeing, and their contributions are no less significant for their anonymity. I don’t know the architect, for instance, who designed the built-in desk in my childhood bedroom, but my life has been enhanced by it. Hours and hours I sat at that desk, with its built-in shelves and drawers; it’s as if the dimensions of that well-crafted space added a dimension to my being. I am moved to know that Rodriguez, a talented artist spurned in his artistic endeavors, resumed a life of humility, integrity, and literal construction, regardless.

May Rodriguez rest in deep peace. Lord knows he did his work.

“Cause how many
times can you wake
up in this comic book
and plant flowers?”

— Cause, Rodriguez

In my six or so years residing in Southern California—a place habitually blanched in sunlight—there have been a few chapters when it seemed the weather obliged my mood, my psychological state, and the very particular thing I was navigating at the time. Two of these chapters involved not the typical, reigning sun but the provisional, visiting rain. Day after day of uncommon rain. Gray, muted-blue skies and rain. A weather event to say, “Time to change it up.”

The first such chapter, a few years ago, I dug deep into the archives of an old email account and reread thousands of emails exchanged between myself and a former lover who lived at a distance for most of our relationship. He lived—and for a time I lived with him—in a notedly damp European city nestled near the sea. A decade removed from that love affair, I sat at my computer in my apartment in California, and the rain beat steadily on the roof and outside my windows, offering a cocoon for me to process that earlier, rainier era of my life. The weather and the words transported me to a former place and time. Days passed. Days of reading, integrating, and deleting most of those emails. It’s as if the rain was there to say, “Go on, rinse the sediment from your bones. Keep what’s dear and release the rest.” And when the project was complete, the rain cleared.

“It’s gonna rain soon
And pull me back in
Whatever it takes
To fill the shape I’m in”

— Searows, Walk Me Home

The second chapter—beginning two weeks ago—, not only did the weather oblige but also the soundtrack. Spotify recommended Searows’ latest release, the song “Dearly Missed,” from his upcoming album Death in the Business of Whaling. Was it that the algorithm knew a combination of things at once: that Searows’ PNW-influenced sound would hit just right as a storm reached the coast; that I needed to batten down the hatches of my own psyche to weather the eye of yet another intense life transition; that I needed sound and scene to support me in that, a sort of universal mise en place?

Whether algorithmic phenomena or a blessed coincidence, things align sometimes. Things align beautifully.

I melted quickly into the sound of “Dearly Missed” and thought, This is perfect. Searows is perfect for this weekend. I need to go deeper into the discography. Enter his debut album from 2022, Guard Dog, an album I had never taken time to hear before. This album is described as a rain-soaked, intimate confession; quiet folk woven with raw longing, memory, and the ache of someone trying to tell the truth gently.

Thus, Guard Dog became the soundtrack to my rainy little SoCal life this past couple weeks.

And what can I say? Much about the rain, much about my life, much about how beautiful is this music. If the phrase is “You had to be there,” then now it’s “You’d have to hear it.”

“It’s part of me
Wouldn’t you believe it’s nothing?
It’s all you need
When you keep the rain from coming”

— Searows, Keep The Rain

A rainy week to myself with admittedly melancholy music was the balm I needed. I was physically ill, as well, with laryngitis rendering me speechless: another prompt from the universe to go silent, reflect, listen deeply. I listened not for words but for feeling. I attuned to the gorgeous frequencies of Searows’ voice, but I didn’t strain for the lyrics those first several listens. The sound seeped in, its own wordless meaning.

City life has a way of occluding the vital undercurrents of my being, particularly in times of transition and mere survival. The freeway roars, merges, passes over and under, intersects, speeds toward a million arrivals, and it all makes sense, but it overwhelms. Windows stack atop and beside each other, portals to the private lives of a hundred residents in a single square block. Crows perch on the power lines. Builders drill and build. Children fuss and parents stop for coffee. The stores blink their lights. I struggle to grab ahold of myself.

I’ve always been someone with a wide aperture. Developing the instinct for narrowing the focus has taken time, experience, maturation. The city is beautifully stimulating but I’m learning to honor my mind’s unique filter. In such a sunny city, too, where the light reveals generously, a rainy, overcast week is a gift to the burdened psyche. The rain lets the mind, heart, and soul be their own light and guide. It says, “Everything is dimmed. Go inside. Feel around. Without much sensory stimuli, come back to your senses.”

With or without the aid of weather, music is a trusty companion and co-regulator in times of need. I’m thankful for Searows’ stunning music helping me to sink into myself and soothe my system this past couple weeks.

As I write this, the sun has returned and the city is abuzz with the holiday season. Change is the only constant, they say, but maybe there is a spirit that stays constant beneath the change. Rainy skies and real music remind us of this spirit.

“But when it’s said and done
I’ll be the north star that takes you home”

— Searows, North Star