Chords for Eric Lowen - Survival, Success and the End of the Road.mov

_ Survival, success, and the end of the road.
I count myself among the lucky ones.
Although my partner Dan Navarro and I have never had the kind of
across-the-board success we may have hoped for when we started out,
we've made our livings at music for a long, long time.
We finally got an opportunity to make our own record in 1990,
after a few years of having some success as songwriters,
[E] and many more years before that of laboring away in near-total [C] obscurity.
_ [G] It was the chance of a lifetime, and we were pretty [D] convinced
it was going to be once in a lifetime.
The [B] fact that it turned out not to be so,
and that [G] we would go on to make many more records and tour for the last 16 years,
still [D] leaves me black and blue [A] from pinching myself.
[Am] We're journeymen, [G] working hard for a relatively small return,
but it's been the most satisfying and [D] rewarding experience I could ever hope for.
_ [Am] We have, through luck and persistence, [C] and a commitment to [G] our long-running motto,
We Try Not To Suck,
[D] connected with a remarkable group of fans and [Am] friends
who have kept coming [C] to see us, bought our records, and supported us in every way.
_ [G] If they are to be believed, [D] we've made a difference to many of them
[G] through [Am] proposals, marriages, divorces, child [C]-rearing, and even the loss of a child.
_ [G] _ That is a kind of success [D] that would have been hard for me to imagine,
but has been ultimately so much more meaningful than [C] all the money we never made.
_ [A] _ Life has a way of turning on a dime,
and in a matter [G] of a few hours, or a few days, or even a few minutes,
everything can seemingly come unglued.
_ [D] On March 17, 2004, I was [C] diagnosed with amyotropic lateral sclerosis,
or more [Em] popularly, Lou Gehrig's disease.
_ [D] ALS is a neuromuscular disease involving the brain cells that [G] control the voluntary muscles.
The brain cells die, the muscles atrophy, and you're left paralyzed
with [Bm] very little or no muscle control in a matter of months or a few years.
[C] Stephen Hawking, the famous physicist, is a well-known survivor of the effects of the disease,
[G] having been diagnosed in 1964.
[D] He is the longest [Am]-known survivor, but he has assisted speech,
[C] a ventilator for breathing, and a feeding tube.
[G] In my mind, [D] I saw the familiar image of him hunched over in his powered [Am] wheelchair
when the [A] doctor gave me my [C] diagnosis on that St.
Patrick's Day morning.
[G] _ It had only been the day before that I had [Am] returned from Northern Virginia
where Dan and I were recording our ninth Lohen and Navarro [C] record.
We were working with a great [G] cast of musicians and a fine producer, John [D] Wynna,
and the creative juices were flowing.
[Am] The studio was up a flight of stairs, which [C] already was quite difficult for me to climb,
[D] but it's a far cry from where I am now,
and I was barely able to make a few small steps while holding on [G] to something.
During the sessions, we had recorded a song by Dave Moore called [D] All the Time in the World.
It was rare for us to record a song [C] we did not write,
but it was for a planned future record [Em] of all cover tunes,
and besides, the meaning of the [D] song hit me very hard,
because for about a year I had noticed changes in my body and I [G] knew something was horribly wrong.
During the rest of the recording, my sickness [Bm] became the 600-pound gorilla hanging over us.
_ [G] _
[C] For me, it was a time of decisions and [G] some confusion about how to proceed with my life.
I was engaged to be [D] married, and the family that was going to be created would include [Am] five ten-year-olds,
her triplets, [C] my twins, three days apart.
_ [G] There was a school of thought that I should [D] immediately quit my nutty job as a singer [Am]-songwriter and touring musician.
[C] There were also some questions directed at my [G] wife in the nature of,
are you still going to get married?
[D] Well, she did still marry me, [Am] I have lots of 12-year [C]-olds now,
and I kept my crazy job in spite of becoming [G] disabled.
It became really [D] obvious to me that what I have spent my life doing is [Am] much more than just a job.
It's more of [C] a calling, as my clergyman father would have [F] referred to it.
Music has huge elements of something magical [C] in it and has the power [G] to reach people in ways that nothing else can.
[C] I don't want to paint it that I have continued [F] out of some sense of responsibility to the audience,
although I do feel one.
[Em] I want to do what I'm doing, and in the 20 [D]-odd years I have been pursuing it,
it has [C] become a large part of who I am.
My partnership with Dan Navarro has been a very [G] long one too,
and with the many musicians and [D] writers we collaborate with.
They [Am] make up a musical community that has been a huge [C] support for me through these tough times.
[G] What has happened for me is that the [D] experience of being a performer and a [Am] songwriter
has deepened in ways I never could [A] have foreseen.
_ [C] Dan and I have always tried [G] to make sure that we wrote about issues that mattered to us.
[D] In some cases it may have hurt us.
[Am] On one release we had not [C] one but two songs with the word middle-aged in them.
[G] Not a wise move for getting radio play.
[D] We've written plenty [Am] about relationships and growing up.
While [C] that never got us a mainstream audience, it did [G] resonate with the amazingly loyal fans we did connect with.
[D] Now I have a new sort of [Am] viewpoint to add with the addition of a [A] serious illness.
_ [C] I have written a few songs [G] that deal with it directly,
but what strikes me is [D] that the things I am facing and the lessons [Am] I am learning really apply to all of us.
[A] We all face [G] inevitable physical decline at some point, and of course we all die.
A dear friend of mine gave me a [Am] good perspective on it at the time of my diagnosis when [C] she said,
we are all on a [G] journey, you just have a better map.
_ [D] _ A songwriter named Michael [Am] Smotherman once told me,
in this business [C] survival is [G] success.
I have survived and I actually feel successful,
although some might not agree if they checked my tax [Bb] returns.
Now I am facing the end of all that, in the uncertain future dictated by a serious illness.
Eventually I will no longer be able to [Db] make my guitar speak.
[Ab] That friend that got me through puberty and still comforts [Db] me today.
_ Finally my voice will [Ab] be mute as the disease takes its inevitable [Db] course.
That will be harder than [Ab] I can express,
and I am sure that well before then I will have had to stop flying around the country doing gigs.
_ Right now though, I am thrilled to still be able to do what I truly love and feel I was born to do.
[Fm] I am able to educate audiences [Ab] about ALS and still able to make a connection that matters,
[Db] both to me and hopefully to them.
[Ab] If there is a distaste on their part at watching me being hoisted on the stage and placed in a chair,
they don't show it.
[Eb] _ They don't even mind that my fingers can't do all that they once did on the fingerboard.
What seems to [Fm] matter is that the music is still doing the magic that [Ab] music does,
and that the connection still happens.
[Db] _
This job is not a chosen one, it chooses one.
It has never been easy and it's getting harder now,
but I would never trade the experience for anything.
[Ab] The mysterious and magical thrill of writing a song,
the charge of being in front of an audience,
and also the exhilaration of speaking in the language of [Db] music with other musicians.
_ [Ab] It will end for me, but the songs will go [Db] on and the memories are mine forever.
_ [Ab] I think I really understand what Lou Gehrig meant in his famous retirement speech when he said,
Today [Fm] I feel like the [Db] luckiest man on the planet.
_ [Eb] _ _ _ [Db] _