His style is part folk, part country, but he doesn't
yodel about cheatin' hearts and truck-stop trysts. He is, as he put
it, "country, with a little more edge and substance." In
his songs, he celebrates the traits and values we associate with
America's pioneers: "simplicity, self-reliance, the dignity of
manual labor, the need to move the body and be outdoors." In
the liner notes of his CDs, he acknowledges his debt to Emerson and
Thoreau.
Flynn has read their essays and journals, and returns to them for
inspiration. When I met him the other day at Ridley Creek State
Park, where he had just finished a nine-mile run ("trust no
thought arrived at sitting down," he explained, quoting Hank),
he pulled on a sweatshirt bearing a Thoreauvian warning:
"Beware of aIl enterprises that require new clothes." In
his weathered Ford cargo van, "Old Paint," he carries a
precious souvenir, a pebble he scooped from Waldon Pond.
He's 41, tall and marathon-runner lean, with a beard and wavy
brown hair. His blue eyes are gentle, assaying, absorbent. He's an
Irish lad, and blessed and cursed accordingly - congenitally verbal,
sensitive, romantic and melancholy. For those who rue the banality
of pop music, who miss the literate lyrics of an Ira Gershwin or
Cole Porter, Flynn is a pleasing throwback.
For Flynn, it works like this: In the beginning, there is the
word. And the words beget stories. And the stories beget music.
He sings not only about lofty philosophical subject, such as the
wages of materialism, but also experiences that are more homely and
personal, such as the agony of watching a friend succumb to anorexia
or depression.
He grew up in Ridley Park, and began playing guitar when he was 12
("the only way I could make eye contact with the opposite
sex"). Singing and writing songs, he worked his way through
Temple. With empty pockets and a head full of dreams, he headed for
Nashville, slept in a tent and snared a job writing songs for the
same company that published Kris Kristofferson.
In time his muse rebelled at writing songs on demand for others.
("It works best when I let the songs find me." says
Flynn.) so he came back home, taught driver's ed for a spell and
tried to make a living singing in local bars. He did what he had to
do, belting out "Margaritaville" and "American
pie" till he was about to puke. But to keep his soul intact,
he'd perform
some of his own songs, hoping he'd command the audience's
attention with his sweat-soaked intensity, his passion and
compassion, his willingness to bear witness, his earnest effort to
probe and present the truth, the haunting, urgent, undeniable
substance and beauty of what he was trying to say.
He's recorded three CDs. The last one, released last
fall, climbed to 15 on the Americana chart. Flynn figures it might
have gone higher had he done more touring, but that would have made
too much time on the road and away from his family.
He lives in a modest Dutch Colonial in Prospect Park
and is the father of three boys and a girl. It's a dicey
proposition, marching to a different drummer, following your bliss.
Frost didn't come clean when he spoke about taking the road less
traveled, Flynn says. Yes, it's made all the difference, but that
road can also lead to"getting hopelessly lost and starving to
death."
He sees friends and relatives making big bucks and
buying big houses and building big portfolios and sometimes he wakes
at 4 a.m. and wonders: "Is this where I'm supposed to be? Am I
fooling myself?"
But then, after a run, which always banishes the
demons of doubt, he'll put things in perspective. "I'm able to
pay the bills and support my family. I'm growing in my craft and
doing work that makes me happy."
He thanks to Thoreau for giving him the courage to
honor the promptings of his heart, for teaching him the importance
of keeping his needs few ("simplify, simplify, simplify")
and reminding him of what's most precious in life.
"'Take my money, but not my afternoons,'
Thoreau said. Life is measured in one currency: time. That's
it," said Flynn."How you spend that currency makes all the
difference. I try to concentrate on the now, to observe life and my
reactions to it. I look at my life as a work in progress, a work of
art, an experiment of one, my own personal Walden."
He may not own a million dollar stucco palace, but
ownership is a conceit and an illusion, he realizes. Like Emerson,
he "owns the horizon," says Flynn, all the Arcadian
splendor that surrounds him as he trots through the park.
"People are so busy they don't have time to
think about what life teaches them, to catch their breath and
connect with life. I like to think that every once in a while,
through one of my songs, they're able to do that."
After our walk, I asked Flynn to play. With guitar
and harmonica, he stood next two Ridley Creek and sang an old
favorite, "Beneath Tall Trees."
Somewhere in between the saint and sinner
Are those two tired and frightened to be kind
I shall be the wind and sky's companion
Walk in leaning grass and breathe new air
Leave behind the steel and concrete canyon
Search for what I've lost in here out there
A woman jogger stopped and listened, enchanted by
the moment, connected by Flynn's poetry to a deeper experience of
life.
-The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 30, 1998
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