‘One World Within . . .’

by whiteray

 I am likely one of the few people with a complete set of albums by the Freddy Jones Band. (Eight CDs from 1993 through 2015, one of them a compilation. There may be a stand-alone single or two that I do not have.) Why? Well, for a couple of simple reasons: I like the band’s rootsy and generally happy sound. And that sound takes me back to the 1990s, the bulk of which I spent on Pleasant Avenue in south Minneapolis, Minnesota.

My main radio station during those years was Minneapolis’ Cities 97, playing an eclectic mix that might have been called adult alternative rock, and several early tracks by the Freddy Jones Band came through my stereo speakers on quiet evenings: “Hold On To Midnight,” “In A Daydream,” “One World” and likely a few more.

Some of the music that pulls me back to those years from 1992 into 1999, other tunes from other performers, is a little moody and reminds me of the less happy times I spent there. But the music of the Freddy Jones band reminds me of the good things, the joys I found living in an urban environment: The butcher shop and barbershop I frequented on Thirty-Sixth Street and the nearby Vietnamese restaurant; Mojo’s Coffeehouse on Grand Avenue, just a block away from my place; and five blocks north (for the first few of those seven years, then a little bit farther away), Cheapo’s, the used record store where I spent inordinate amounts of time and money during those seven years.

 And since one of the purposes of music in my life is to cement my memories in place, it’s reaffirming to be reminded that the years I spent on Pleasant Avenue were not all lost time.

I sometimes look back at those years – my late thirties and early forties – and grieve for what I see as time spent trying, with only a little success, to figure out where I fit into the world. And then I think about a line I wrote in a song for a friend a few years ago: “Time away is not time lost, and seasons always turn.”

So when I seek out the music of the Freddy Jones Band, or when it pops up on random as I go about my days, I realize that those years were better than I sometimes remember, and, if nothing else, they were preparation for the sweet years with my Texas Gal that have come since. And that makes the Freddy Jones Band even more important to me.

Here’s “One World” from the band’s 1993 album Waiting For The Night, written by the group’s Marty Lloyd.

On the gypsies’ avenue tonight
Hundred lairs seem like a thousand candle lights
I do not read what the signs they have to say
In my soul there are riches locked away

One world within, one heart is beating still today
An open road, one love can carry you away
 
If you lost all of your obsessions
Could you part or would you cling to your possessions?
I do believe in a sweet imagination
An open road paved by inspiration
 
One world within, one heart is beating still today
An open road, one love can carry you away
 
So many thorns wrapped around your ankles
Pretty gold that is taken by the banker
But I believe in a sweeter than sensation
An open path that’s not choking with temptation
 
One world within, one heart is beating still today
An open road, one love can carry you away
One world within, afraid of the gold
Unlock the doors in anger with the keys you hold
 
One world within, afraid to be sold
 
And the thorns around your ankle
Makes you bleed and bleed and bleed in gold
One world within, one heart is beating still today
An open road, one love can carry you away