Talking To...Sam Baker
There May Be Chickens
Music found Sam Baker as a way for him to make sense of the day he got caught in someone else’s war when a bomb went off on a train in South America. He was a passenger, those next to him were killed, including a young boy whose face he says he will never forget. He survived, but was altered, mentally and physically, by the experience.
Fatea had the chance to talk to Sam, and what unfolded was a fascinating, thought provoking, even moving, discussion about music, writing, Texas, forgiveness and even chickens...
Afterwards I was left with one certainty, if more people were like Sam Baker, in choosing to let go of hatred and anger and pursue love and forgiveness, the world would be a much better place.
SB: Sam Baker HM: Helen Mitchell
SB: I think for most of us it does! Anyway, after that, it started doing pretty well, so....with Pretty World....you know I don’t know how much you know, but I was in South America and I got caught in the middle of someone else’s war. It killed the people I was sitting with and it nearly killed me. In Mercy, there’s a statement about the point of impact when the bomb went off. But you know, the world is and can be a beautiful place. Then there’s another world of trying to live with and accept a changed body. I think I had so sift through what was left after that blast and be grateful for what is there not bitter about what is gone.
HM: Something like that has got to change your perspective really...
SB: I think so. You struggle but you cope and it’s a miracle. It was a pretty dark place. The record ends that the streets are quiet...they are, they make no judgement.
HM: That’s an ironic conversation when tomorrow is September 11th.
SB: Yeah..it is...you know, the concept of war, where we are able to kill so many people....we all struggle with things in our lives...but...
HM: Don’t you think though, in some way, it’s those struggles which unite us as people.....we all experience different things, obviously, but they, somehow, unite us.
SB: I think they can. I mean, Cotton, I dedicated for the sake of community, for the sake of us. No, you know, not one of us is alone in the fact that we suffer as people.
HM: Right.
SB: My favourite song is ‘Signs’
HM: Signs – you were in San Antonio – I don’t know if it’s the same as in Austin – but you’ve been to Austin..we don’t call them beggars...the one who inspired the song had a sign that her husband had left and help and her sign was upside down...
HM: That’s actually in the song, isn’t it.
SB (smiles) Right, right. I gave her some money and I thought, I tried to say her life might go better if her sign was the right way up, but I couldn’t. Maybe it wouldn’t, but at least then people could read it...the sign.
HM: I love the harmony on that song...
SB/ HM: (at same time) Meet me in St. Louis...
SB: Right. You know, the point of that song is to say if I had a way out...
(At this point we are interrupted by a man asking Sam to sign a CD for his daughter who was away and was sad to be missing the gig, Sam asked if he could sign it ‘We miss you...’ which he did. I just thought that was lovely.)
SB: Most people if they had a choice, wouldn’t be in that place –“ if I had a horse, if I had not lost my crown” if I could go I would...I think we forget that.
HM: There but for the Grace of God...
SB: Yeah
HM: Why St Louis?
SB: I don’t know why songs come to me, sometimes they come to me and they make sense and other times they don’t.
HM: I love that quote in the CD box – ‘let’s talk about forgiveness.’
SB: Yeah and I think it’s about...something I need to leave behind, something I need to give up...that I need to forgive..
HM: Yeah, I work with children who’ve had tough times and I wish I could help them to forgive and to let it go.
SB: Yeah, but you know, I still struggle with it and there are days I realise I’m holding on to the lack of forgiveness....there are times it feels good to be bitter but it’s corrosive.
I’m sorry I need to go, I have to go collect the lead...
HM: No problem.
SB: Helen, thankyou so so much.
HM: No, thankyou, that was really interesting.
SB: See you at the show?
HM: Yeah for sure!
SB: Ok, thanks, take care, see you soon!
Helen Mitchell