Dan Fogelberg: 1951-2007
An Orthodox Christian Eulogy
Singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg died Sunday morning, December 16, 2007, after a three year battle against advanced prostate cancer. He was 56 years old.
For those of my home parish, this is the “Daniel” whose name I have been including for prayers during the Divine Liturgy for some time now. Far from being an inappropriate obsession from a star-struck fan, I have considered this a pious duty, especially as I actually had the opportunity to meet and speak with him on a couple of occasions a decade ago; it seemed meet and right to offer prayers on his behalf.
There is no denying that I have for many years considered Dan Fogelberg to be something of a distant musical mentor. For some reason, his musical style, his lyrical approach, even his spiritual questing and questioning, as well as his struggles with the passions, have resonated with me in a profound way, and have had an edifying influence on me for a quarter century. So one could also take this eulogy as an apologia of sorts, a personal reflection as to “Why I Respect Dan Fogelberg.” One might also extrapolate the general approach I have used (although inconsistently, and with a large degree of bias, I’ll readily admit) to any attempts to apply our Orthodox Worldview to an analysis of pop culture.
~~~
Conscience, Confession and Yearning towards Heaven
Of the great songwriters of the 1970s and 80s, Dan Fogelberg stands out as being perhaps the most confessional (and by far the most romantic), and certainly at least as metaphysical as Jackson Browne or Joni Mitchell. From his earliest work, there are strong threads in his lyrics that reveal a highly developed moral compass (even when lamenting or accusing his own transgressions and foolishness!), balanced with songs that bespeak a vivid remembrance of death, judgment and the discernment that must accompany such meditations for them to be redemptive and life-changing. Songs like “Better Change” (a clear call to repent of a bad direction before it leads to destruction), and “Changing Horses” from the album Souvenirs, are hallmarks of his thoughtfulness and thirst for wisdom, for truly knowing. That same album closes with the revelatory, unequalled, “There’s A Place In The World For A Gambler,” which in a simple, three-chord, three-verse arc somehow expresses and embraces the dynamics and mysteries of life, love and the beyond that resonate throughout our entire lives, even anticipating (yearning for?) the saving Gospel message of Christ with the final verse and epic, repeating chorus (“There’s a light in the depths of your darkness… Let it shine!”).
On the title track of his opus, Nether Lands (1977), he sings about his own purpose as an artist, somehow bridging from the earth to the heavens, and confessing the darkness of his own soul, while longing, once again, for illumination:
Off in the Nether Lands I heard the sound
of the beating of heavenly wings
and deep in my brain I can hear a refrain
of my soul as she rises and sings;
Anthems to glory and anthems to love
And hymns filled with earthly delight
Like the songs that the darkness composes to worship the light…
Astonishing to me was how this very song in particular, and some of the main themes in Fogelberg’s best work in general, are expressed by our revered ascetical father, St John Climacus:
A certain man, on seeing a beautiful body thereupon glorified the Creator and from that one look was moved to love of God and to a fountain of tears. It was wonderful to see how what would have been a source of destruction for one was a supernatural cause of a crown for another.
Let us be guided by the same rule in singing melodies and songs. For lovers of God are moved to holy gaiety, divine love, and tears both by worldly and spiritual songs; but lovers of pleasure to the opposite.
Of course, I am not trying to suggest that we should be venerating Dan Fogelberg as a saint! In his rock and roll heyday, I understand he was on the average probably no worse nor better in his conduct and lifestyle than other pop recording artists of the time (which is a decadent admission to say the least). He was married twice before meeting Jean, his soulmate and wife from 1996 (they married in 2002) until his death, and his love songs reveal at times a rather murky moral code driven by the winds of the passions. (Though to be fair, this is balanced by an exalted and ennobled ideal of the nature of love - not merely eros, but philia and agape as well - which is achingly rendered in masterpieces like “Longer,” “Sketches,” “Anastasia’s Eyes,” and “Same Old Lang Syne.”)
At the same time, he obviously possessed a powerful conscience, and struggled with passions and demons, sometimes even naming them as such! In these lines from “Empty Cages” (from the album The Innocent Age, 1981), we see him clearly approaching songwriting and performing as confessional and cathartic, while yet agonizing and lamenting over his enslavement to passions and urges that entice him to pleasure and amusement, while ironicallly ever more isolating him, till death finally locks the self made cage, leaving him forever alone:
Waiting in the wings your courage sings before you falter
It’s just another way to say what never, never shows
It’s just another day to lay your sins before the altar…
Every time it seems that you have gained an understanding
those devils at your heels reach up and try to tip the scales.
Waking from a dream it seems it’s all been done without you,
and every vain attempt to make you stand is destined to fail.
Fury rages through your restless days
Shades of time that’s gone before
Empty cages where the prisoner plays
Till the door swings closed behind forevermore.
~~~
Isolated and In-Between
Loneliness, isolation, abandonment and being lost (as opposed to being found by God), are likewise powerful recurring elements that inform much of his finest material. Often he just sketches it briefly and leaves the image for the listener to absorb, as in this final verse from “The Reach” (also from The Innocent Age):
Soon the northers will bluster and blow
And the woods will be whitened with snowfall
And the Reach will lie frozen
For the lost and unchosen to roam.
Though a master of imagery, Fogelberg’s ability to also weave in symbol and metaphor infused his lyrics with a subtlety that draws the listener back again and again, offering new shades and layers of meaning. Obviously quite well read and a student and lover of classical music (he credited Chopin, Grieg and Tchaikovsky among his chief influences), there is a depth to his work, such as in “Scarecrow’s Dream” (from Nether Lands), where he laments:
Seldom seen a scarecrow’s dreamI hang in the hopes of replacement
Castles tall I built them allbut I dream that I’m trapped in the basementAnd if you ever hear me calling out
and if you’ve been by paupers crowned
between the worlds of men and make believe
I can be found
The obvious reference to fantasies and The Wizard of Oz eventually gives way to the image of one crucified, hanging in suffering, hoping for replacement, struggling to confront, let alone accept and embrace the reality of his anguish. It can even be seen as the plight of modern man, who is immobilized and impoverished by his refusal to heed Christ's call: to deny himself, take up his cross and follow Christ. And so he suffers endlessly (“scared of a fear [he] can’t name,” as Fogelberg sings in “The Power of Gold”), while turning in vain to pleasures, entertainment and fantasies to bolster his empty ego and numb his pain.
Fogelberg always seemed to be in between, looking ahead, but definitely looking back as well. Even as a young man, he revealed a strong nostalgic streak, singing in the title track from his 1974 album Souvenirs, “When faced with the past, the strongest man cries.” Seven years later (“In The Passage,” from The Innocent Age) he sings of his daring and dangerous fascination with the past, “I cast my fate with the wife of Lot, I turned my gaze around.” And in the chorus, he wrestles with the mystery of life:
In the passage from the cradle to the grave
we are born, madly dancing
Rushing headlong through the crashing of the days
We run on and on without a backwards glance.
He does not offer any answers, but rather gives urgent and intense voice to the questions of why and how life slips away, our days and dreams becoming like ghosts running “down the ancient corridors, through the gates of time,” with The Innocent Age album serving as his most ambitious statement, a double-LP song cycle on life, love, death and the beyond.
~~~
Forefathers
In his moving, cinematic ballad “Forefathers” (from The Wild Places, 1990) about his parents’ families who immigrated to America from Scandinavia and Scotland in the early 20th century, he weaves the family threads together, telling how,
The woman and the man were wed, just after the war,
and they settled in this river town, and three fine sons she bore.
One became a lawyer and one fine pictures drew,
And one became this lonely soul
who sits here now and sings this song to you.
The poignancy in this song, like so many others now, with Fogelberg’s passing, is amplified by the chorus:
And the sons become the fathers,
and their daughters will be wives,
As the torch is passed from hand to hand,
and we struggle through our lives;
Though the generations wander,
the lineage survives
And all of us, from dust to dust
We all become forefathers by and by…
I do not think it would be an exaggeration at all to affirm that for tens of thousands of people, Dan Fogelberg has now indeed become a “forefather” of sorts. That he gave expression to the hopes and yearnings of a generation is testified to by the tens of millions of albums he sold, and by the loyal audience that continued to hang on his every word well after his commercial peak had passed.
~~~
The Circumstances of Death
The saints tell us that God’s providence is sometimes revealed in the circumstances and mystery of death. Mother Gavrilea (a 20th century Orthodox nun, whose amazing life is conveyed in the biography, The Ascetic of Love) said, “What some people call coincidences, I call encounters.” In this context I ponder the quietness of Dan Fogelberg’s death, with his faithful wife Jean, right there at his side, in their home on the coast of Maine. As if to specifically and clearly point to his lyrical gifts, God took him on the Sunday of the Forefathers (the Second Sunday before the Nativity of Christ in the Russian tradition), etching that particular song quoted above in bold relief.
Even more significant perhaps is that among those we commemorate on the Sunday of the Forefathers is the Old Testament Prophet Daniel. This year, the very next day on the Church’s liturgical calendar (December 17) was the fixed commemoration of the Prophet Daniel. (In fact, this is virtually a week-long celebration of Holy Daniels, with St Daniel the Hesychast of Moldavia commemorated on December 18 and St Daniel of Serbia on the 20th!)
To repose on one’s name day is a powerful thing, and is viewed in traditional Orthodox lands as a significant blessing from God. In Daniel Fogelberg’s case, having found a love which lasted to the end of his days, and having retired more and more (long before being diagnosed with prostate cancer) from worldly fame and glory for a quiet, private life, one could certainly offer a hopeful “Amen” for a man who may have endured well his particular struggles, and who may indeed have turned his searing artistic meditations inward upon himself as eternity loomed near, preparing for the final journey with which he grappled in so many of his songs. Add to these considerations the redemptive potential in suffering through the sheer physical devastation of his struggle with cancer, and we begin to see the man in a whole new light, with pathos, sympathy, and forgiveness for the sins of his youth, and with hope for eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven.
The statement issued by Dan Fogelberg’s family after his death speaks of how “his strength, dignity and grace in the face of... this disease were an inspiration to all who knew him.” Even more powerfully, his widow, Jean, writes to thank and comfort her late husband’s fans, hinting that he was concerned lest his life be found to have had no purpose:
Dan was a strong and private man, but even the mountain must tremble, and during the toughest times he gained solace and comfort from reading your letters and learning that his music had been a source of light in your lives. Greatest of all though, was the feeling you gave him that his time here had served a purpose.
We will likely never know this side of the grave whether any of these speculations bear any validity, as Dan Fogelberg was a deeply private man, and I would doubt that a biography of him on that level would ever be written, but it is edifying for us to consider how he lived his life over the last decade, and try to “connect the dots,” so to speak. Which leads us to the next section...
~~~
A Sacred Gift, Offered Back to the Giver
1997 marked the 25th anniversary since the release of Dan Fogelberg’s first album, Home Free. But by ‘97 his creative output was no where near as prolific as in the 1970s and 80s. Fogelberg continued to tour annually, but new material was rare after 1995. He had, in effect, left the rat race of the music business (gotten off “the elevator,” as he might have phrased it). At the same time, both overt Christian themes and indirect allusions began to show up ever more frequently in his songs throughout the 1990s, one highlight being the deeply personal and prayerful, gospel-flavored, “Don’t Lose Heart” (from 1997’s Boxed Set, Portrait: The Music of Dan Fogelberg):
You've seen me stumble, Lord, you've seen me fall
You shared my triumphs and you've seen me crawl
When I think that I could lose it all
You give me courage and you tell me...
Don't lose heart, don't lose heart
Though it feels like yours will fall apart
Just remember when the road gets dark
I will always be beside you...
Thus it is significant that in 1999 he released a Christmas album: The First Christmas Morning. Not some slick, secular “Pop” Holiday album, cashing in on the inherent marketability of such a release, nor an equally slick “Contemporary Christian” (CCM) venture, with its own built-in audience able to generate equally substantial profits, but a modest, yet profoundly Christ-centered – and blatantly non-commercial – Christmas album, traditional in tone and instrumentation, featuring ballad carols and aires dating back to Elizabethan, Renaissance and Baroque periods, along with several original compositions in full harmony with the classics he so carefully selected. Every lyric (his own as well as the classics) proclaims Christ as King, Lord Almighty, the One Whom “Lords and Dukes shall worship,” and to Whom, “At Christmastime we praise the Lord and count His blessings so many.” Except for a verse of “O Tannenbaum,” there is no secular song on the disc. (Indeed, in the midst of the rollicking “At Christmastime” with its eighteenth century style couplets, he rather boldly admonishes us, “At Christmastime we sacrifice and give to those who are needy!”) One might dare to say, in Fr. Alexander Schmemann’s fancy theological language, that this is a deeply doxological and eucharistic recording, giving glory and thanksgiving to God for the birth in the flesh of His Son before the Ages from the Virgin Mary. (Fogelberg’s liner notes and introduction are equally clear in giving glory to the Birth of Christ, and there is even a small, luminous cross on the CD cover, rendered as a specular highlight emanating from the candle at the center of a stylized Christmas wreath.)
Perhaps just as significant is how out of step with our abnormal and distorted times this album is. It is a treasure, a gift, and for an artist to create such a clear and traditional work of praise and glorification of Christ in this age and culture is a miracle in its own right, and should not be underestimated. There is grace in this recording, for those who listen with faith.
~~~
Closing the Circle
In his final recording, 2003’s Full Circle, he sings once more, one final time, it would turn out, of what it means to be an artist, the struggles, fears and darkness, but also the glories and heights of what he clearly perceives as a divine gift. From the song “Icarus Ascending:”
You have been given the most sacred of gifts,
You must be fearless now and follow.
The tone and message are clearly as of one encouraging other artists, even of one who is “passing the mantle,” so to speak. And he who always had a strong sense of the otherworldliness, the mystery of life, weaves it all together using the metaphor of Icarus’ flight to the heavens:
Don't look down
Though your heart may be weary
Don't look down
Though your wings are on fire
Don't look down
Though the night may seem endless
There's a reason you're flying this fast and this far
Let your faith be your strength
And your love by your guiding star
The last verse of this song proclaims a solid message of hope, “There is no darkness in this place that we’re bound, love is the only thing that matters.” Is this not an echo of the admonition of St Isaac of Syria, “Love, then do whatever you want.” Or yet another, “I no longer fear God... I love Him!” Or of the Beloved Disciple himself, St John the Theologian, “Whoever loves is of God.” Might not this final song then be like a prophetic “word” given once more by this beloved artist, who touched so many souls. For those who stood by him to the end, it is indeed a testament of sorts, a final word... of love.*
*And also, we might point out, a word of beauty. Dan Fogelberg’s recordings of the 1970s and 80s bear his signature ethereal voice, a beautiful, whispery, lyrical voice which was perfectly connected from a resonant baritone through a rich and mellow tenor, and beyond, to what can only be described as an angelic falsetto. Hearing this lovely voice soar in songs like “Nether Lands,” one is reminded of Dostoyevsky’s ecstatic proclamation, “Beauty will save the world!”
To balance and provide a more direct context for this perhaps vague notion of “love” (which has been a central theme in popular music for a century!), I will close this eulogy by quoting Fogelberg’s own liner notes from his 1991 Concert DVD, Greetings From The West:
I believe the role of an artist is to interpret reality through a system of beliefs and a long-term seeking of truth... (Emphasis mine.)
This statement truly resonates for me as (hopefully!) a lover of Truth and an Orthodox Christian. In context with all I have so briefly and poorly attempted to express about the life and artistry of this profoundly gifted musician, singer, writer, struggler and seeker, this gives me great hope that even if Daniel Fogelberg may not have considered himself to have found what he was seeking (or what I would have wanted for him to have been seeking!) before passing from this life, still, by the grace of God, Christ may indeed have found him! Amen! May it be so!
~~~
With the Souls of the Righteous...
God willing, I hope to be able to continue to pray the Prayers for the Departed daily during Daniel Fogelberg’s forty days. That is a holy podvig I lovingly embrace, keeping in mind a line from the song he wrote for his father (“Leader Of The Band”),
He gave to me a gift I know I never can repay.
We pray for our family and friends who have departed. We pray out of love. We pray in faith that our loving and merciful God is truly the God of the living, and so we pray in hope. We pray, somehow dimly aware of the profound mystery of life and death, of salvation and the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. So it was especially comforting as well as motivating to come across these providential petitions in the Eighth Ode of the Canon for the Departed, which seemed to truly apply to Daniel Fogelberg:
O Master, in the place of Thy righteous establish the soul of him who hath borne, though not always, Thy yoke and Thy burden which is light, and who hath sung to Thee! (Emphasis mine.)
O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on the soul of Thy departed servant Daniel who has fallen asleep, and may his memory be eternal!
~~~
Appended February 16: My Letter to The Living Legacy website, which is compiling condolences from fans to present to Jean Fogelberg in book form:
To Jean and all of Dan's family, and to my fellow fans out there, I humbly offer,
Two Words of Comfort ~ ~ ~
I am an Orthodox Christian, and in our ancient tradition dating back to the time of the Apostles, prayers are offered for the soul of the newly reposed, and especially earnestly during the first forty days after their passing. During that time, in addition to praying for Dan's journey to his heavenly homeland and reward, I composed a eulogy of sorts to his memory, which I have posted in full on a new blog I created just for that purpose: http://zosimas.blogspot.com/.
In writing this eulogy, I encountered two things which powerfully struck me, which I wanted to share through the Living Legacy Condolences:
The first has to do with what I called in my eulogy, "The Circumstances of Death:"
The saints tell us that God’s providence is sometimes revealed in the circumstances and mystery of death. Mother Gavrilea (a 20th century Orthodox nun, whose amazing life is conveyed in the biography, The Ascetic of Love) said, “What some people call coincidences, I call encounters.” In this context I ponder the quietness of Dan Fogelberg’s death, with his faithful wife Jean, right there at his side, in their home on the coast of Maine. As if to specifically and clearly point to his lyrical gifts, God took him on the Sunday of the Forefathers (the second Sunday before the Nativity of Christ in the Russian tradition), etching Dan's beautiful, cinematic, and now achingly poignant song by the same name in bold relief. ("And all of us, from dust to dust, we all become forefathers by and by...")
Even more significant perhaps is that among those we commemorate on the Sunday of the Forefathers is the Old Testament Prophet Daniel. This year, the very next day on the Church’s liturgical calendar (December 17) was the fixed commemoration of the Prophet Daniel. (In fact, this was virtually a week-long celebration of Holy Daniels, with St Daniel the Hesychast of Moldavia commemorated on December 18 and St Daniel of Serbia on the 20th!)
To repose on one’s name day is a powerful thing, and is viewed in traditional Orthodox lands as a significant blessing from God...
The second was a pertinent line that seemed to clearly refer to Dan, from one of the prayers for the departed (from the Orthodox Christian prayer book):
O Lord, in the place of Thy righteous establish the soul of him who hath borne, though not always, Thy yoke and Thy burden which is light, and who hath sung to Thee!
I am thankful to God for Dan Fogelberg and his gift of music, which uplifted and edified my soul and the souls of untold thousands of others during his all too brief earthly sojourn. We know his gift was from God because it brought peace and solace to others. We know he offered this gift back to God, in songs which pointed his listeners beyond themselves to light, life, and love. And as I derived great comfort in the above two "words," I wanted to share them with you all as well, that we all might be united in the hope of eternal life, and be stirred up to do that which Dan exhorted us all to do:
Let it shine!
with love in Christ ~
Ralph Hunt Sidway
Louisville Kentucky
