Several mornings ago, over a table of aging cups of coffee, spilled table salt, sleepy conversation and open Bibles, I played a few of my original songs for my parents.
I played these songs on my brother’s black Mitchell D120 Dreadnaught, a starter guitar. Not my weapon of choice, but currently my most frequently played. When I’m over at my parent’s house and have a little time to pick around and write, I’ll pull it from the corner and get to work on it. High action and squeaky strings and all. She’s not as kind to me as my Breedlove, but she gets the job done.
Being the only one that took on music in a serious way amongst a family that is self-proclaimed “not-all-that-musical”, I have thus been dubbed the unofficial, poetic and musical laureate of the Helton Family. Though I, a friend and admirer of many far more skilled musicians than myself, think myself humorously unworthy of this level of recognition, I certainly appreciate the support.
The Love.
I love to play. Nothing soothes my heart like the patient craft of producing that sweet, melodious elixir that the Father has so graciously set into existence. Not only is it a creative passion, but a deeply ingrained need for a therapeutic outlet that I think we all have in some capacity, and when I am needing it, I often end up with a guitar in my hand and a song in my throat.
The folks around me, my family especially, have heard their fair share of me. I’m always picking up that guitar and trying to get it to make a pretty sound. Maybe a little too much sometimes. It’s a craving, like needing a cup of coffee in the morning or having something sweet after dinner. I just got to do it.
Up until this point, it’s been mostly “Ian Sings The Gospel Greats” or “Jim Croce’s Greatest Hits, Ian’s Way” or “Ian does Dylan” (Yes, I’ve heard about the devil stuff, but my grandad loves to hear ‘Lay Lady Lay’ and ‘Don’t Think Twice’ . Sue me).
In other words, it’s been all covers.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love a good cover. I mean with songs floating around out there like Ray Lamontagne’s ‘Jolene’, Thom Yorke’s ‘Fake Plastic Trees’, or the late Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’, it’s an impossible task not to pick and wonder at them.
I love to pull these kinds of songs out from my colorful catalogue of favorites which, as I get older, seems to be expanding at a rapid pace. To sing them is to step into the world in which they were written, and that can be a bold task. But I sing them and I am reminded that there are people out there, many of them long dead, who get what’s going on in my heart. It can be hard not to envy that I myself did not write them, especially when I know so well those feelings or experiences which might have brought those songs to life.
The Times They Are-A Changin’.
But as with all things in life, a change has started to set in. A turn has begun. I am starting to see life, with my own eyes, for what it truly is. I am plunging into the depths of the “real world”, as they call it, and all it’s circumstances with great intensity, which means that things are getting “realer” with each passing day. I’m growing older. I got married very young (much to the judgement of random people who feel they must voice their ignorant opinions). I’ve lost a lot of friends I didn’t think I would ever lose. I work at a job that pays well, but I’m not passionate about. I’m trying hard to be the man everyone needs me to be, sometimes even just the man they want me to be. The Lord’s grace is surely sufficient (2 Cor. 12:9), but regardless, these parts of life can sometimes lay heavily on a man.
All this to say, my thoughts and expressions of these phases of life, in both trial and triumph, have more and more frequently been budding their dulcet little petals through the art of songwriting.
And that brings us back to my parent’s table several mornings ago.
The Funny Ones.
I played for them the songs composed out of each nook and cranny of my heart, most of which were written in the last few months, weeks even. I played them as they are. I showed them, on a cheap Mitchell guitar, life as I see it, or rather, life as I live it.
Some of my songs brought them laughter, as I had well hoped and as was the intention. Art that provokes laughter is to be treasured. To quotes Dickens,
“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.” (‘A Christmas Carol’).
Many of my favorite songwriters interweave those lighter elements of humor into their music, and I find a deep refreshment in that. John Prine describing the “nine mile-long” cigarette he plans to smoke in glory (“When I Get To Heaven”), Blaze Foley’s charmingly comical tale of living in a treehouse with his love (“Livin’ In The Woods In A Tree”), Harry McLintock’s dreams of canoeing on “lakes of stew and whiskey, too” (“Big Rock Candy Mountain”).
I eat that stuff up, man. It makes me feel like this life may not be all so serious. Like I don’t have to give such a damn all the time. Like I don’t have to go around hanging my head to the ground, tearing my favorite shirts in grief and weeping profusely at this hyper-awareness of the existence of death and turmoil that we are all so saturated in on a daily basis. It makes me feel like that cornucopia of laughs and good spirits, offered freely in life but so often rejected, is truly something worth singing about.
I mean, a nine-mile cigarette for goodness’ sake, that speaks for itself.
The Not-So-Funny Ones.
Now naturally, me being a human being who is unfortunately still subject to much brokenness, and well aware of the aforementioned deaths and turmoils of this complex world, many of these songs that I played for my folks brought them quiet, gentle tears; another outcome that was unquestionably expected.
It’s always so strange to me, seeing that subtle redness, that glossy wet film welling up in the eyes of a parent or relative, especially when you are the procuring cause. This is particularly true with my father. I have seen my father cry, and in much more grievous circumstances than the hearing of a bittersweet tune, but still, to see your father moved to a misty eye at the prick of your own writers pen is something profound.
When I write to the end of tears, my heart trembles, for I can see that there are greater things in this world than the business of daily doings, and that I, among many blessed players of this world, am a privileged carrier of a grand poem that, in all truth, I am not the writer of, but merely a teller. Take it from king Solomon, who wrote in Ecclesiastes:
“He has made everything beautiful in it’s time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecc. 3:11, NIV)
How true it is that I cannot fathom even half of the depth of these things that I see in life, and am therefore moved to write and sing about. If I could, I would surely melt into tragic oblivion at the sheer grandness of it, like those Nazi’s at the end of Raiders Of The Lost Ark.
I can’t comprehend the full depth of true love, the pains of dying to self, the beauty of a woman, the way of an autumn leaf driven by the wind, the piercing blade of nostalgia, the sharpness of our earthly grieving; most of all, the befuddling concept that the Word of God would make himself flesh (John 1:14) to die for a piece of crap like me.
Even the goofy songs speak on these depths. In ‘Spanish Pipedream’, John Prine receives what I see to be profoundly counter-cultural and (mostly) wise advice for seeking a truer and richer life in a world of vanity… from a “dancer”. There’s Johnny Cash singing Shel Silverstein’s “Boy Named Sue”, lamenting his being given a girl’s name and battling with his estranged father over it. A laughable tune, but beneath the surface lies a tale of boyhood wounds, misplaced masculinity, and the widespread tragedy of the absent father. (I think Sue ought to read ‘Wild At Heart’…)
Though provoking laughter, the content of these songs are hard and true and deeply wrestled with — Do we know the half of what it means to be loved by a father? Do we see the profoundly Biblical value of stewarding our land, lives, and families well?
The Battle.
We are all finding ways to say what we need to say in this world. Be it simple, be it heartbreaking, be it drop-dead hilarious. For some, this comes naturally, like breathing or walking in a straight line. But this is not always the case. It may be a battle, for one reason or another, just to get it out. An internal warfare of fear and comparison, beauty and creation, art and embarrassment, all heaped together in a cloudy skirmish for control over the tender poet’s heart and creative liberty.
That battle is my own.
I have fought this battle sitting before my wife and mother-in-law, repeating the same guitar chords and laughing awkwardly, stalling, deciding whether I can bear to show them a song I wrote.
I have fought this battle in trying to read my poetry, my heart’s blood spilled onto a page, to friends who care more for things like Call of Duty and sports news than free verse and grand sentiments.
I fight this battle nearly every time I lift my voice into a melody in front of another person, and sitting at the table with my parents was no exception.
In these little moments of vulnerability, the likes of which I have experienced before but never quite got used to, the air always feels extra quiet. It’s almost as if even the little particles of dust floating off the household surfaces are coming in closer to listen and critique. The walls judge quietly, the chairs squeak with distaste, the lamps lean in to watch me butcher the licks. My parents of course loved them, but I strum the last chord with a strange discomfort in being in my own skin.
I want so badly to be seen, but when I finally am, I am too seen.
And so I wrestle with this idea, this recurring mindset that I am the world’s biggest poser. The world’s frailest heart. A man of embarrassing facades, a shaky-handed frontman picking at a guitar and trying to convince his friends and loved ones, strangers even, that he is James Taylor or Guy Clark or Woody Guthrie.
Why is this the case? Why can I not say what I need to with a brutal and (hopefully) poetic honesty without feeling like a traitor to whatever idea everyone has about me? How can I honestly chronicle the truths of my life, the bitterest and sweetest alike, without feeling that I am not really the fine, clean-cut young man that my grandparents may think I am, without feeling like I’m betraying my “good time” self, without worrying about frightening my mother and father with the raw, often unaesthetic elements of life that I, like any other young man, must experience?
May I harness those hurts and joys and angers and praises into a worthy enough song that I may have no shame for?
Ultimately, I figure it to be an issue of confidence. Why do I care? Why does it matter what anyone thinks? What does it matter if someone doesn’t care for the style of music or writing I create? What does it matter if they don’t get the story?
The answer is that it doesn’t matter.
Not for any art, any song, any film; any of it. If it mattered to Justin Vernon, I wouldn’t have been able to find a solemnly freeing lament to ‘Blindsided’ on a lonely backroad. If it mattered to Hemingway, I wouldn’t have found my love for literature in ‘Old Man and The Sea’. If it mattered to Robin Williams, my heart would never have been broken by the words, “It’s not your fault”.
It doesn’t matter, but to not only know this, but also believe it and live it out, that is the battle. It is the battle I am fighting and will continue to fight. The battle that is unseen, a war of the mind and spirit, a war for liberation and creation and a sense of self, to preserve the unborn art that may slip out of the lips of a young man who decided to write something honest, whether or not anyone gets it, simply because the truth is worth singing.
Therefore, I will write more songs and play them for my parents. I will pick up that Mitchell guitar from the corner as many times as I must, for I know must, lest something in me dies that I cannot afford to grieve. I must tend to this garden of notes and words and melodies that is being cultivated within me all the time, despite the elements, the pests, the deterrents, all hell-bent on killing my crop and starving whoever might hear it and be fed by it.
So here’s to laughing and crying and cheap guitars and nine-mile cigarettes and not giving too much of a damn.
Sincerely,
Ian Samuel Helton, 2025
I love how you are true to yourself in your writing. Real and raw. You plumb the depths of your struggle and express it in a very relatable way. We all feel like posers at some point, even after years of doing whatever it is. "Imposter Syndrome" is alive and well.
I, too, was married young. The key is to stick with it, commit to working things through no matter what. We had a lot of growing up to do, but we grew up together and now after 47 years we are reaping the rewards for our efforts. :-) This is the fun part!
Well done! Keep releasing the gifts within you.
Beautifully written. I think it’s the artists plight. No amount of figuring out what the cure is helps because when we feel deeply we create deeply. No response whether by thousands or by few, whether good or bad, whether deeply engaged or given a cursory glance changes the condition of the heart that it came forth from. I have found that putting the effort into filling myself up and sharing from excess rather than emptiness is the best for me, it’s the best way to look after the deepest parts of myself. My wife already knows when I need to go out into the mountains to fill my tanks, she regularly tells me to go (luckily I live in the mountains) because she knows that the filling I need isn’t from affirmation from the people around me but rather a spiritual one.