In a week’s time, I will be venturing to Nashville, TN to see one of my favourite bands of all time: The Silver Jews. They are playing in a cave (Bluegrass Underground at Cumberland Caverns) and today the rumour is that it will be their last show. This has not been 100% confirmed but if it is the case, then I will bid them a fond farewell and wish them the best for the future.

I am eternally grateful that I have had the joy of seeing them play twice before and to my friends Marc and Marisa for gifting this trip to Peter and I as a wedding gift (wow, crazy). With the news that another opportunity to see them play is unlikely, I am even more thankful to have such generous and psychic pals.

David Berman (pictured), the lead singer and writer for The Silver Jews, writes: I always said we would stop before we got bad. If I continue to record I might accidentally write the answer song to Shiny Happy People.

For lovers of poetry everywhere, please enjoy ‘Snow’ – one of my favourites from his book Actual Air:

Snow, by David Berman

Walking through a field with my little brother Seth

I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.
For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels
had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.

He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.

Then we were on the roof of the lake.
The ice looked like a photograph of water.

Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.

I didn’t know where I was going with this.

They were on his property, I said.

When it’s snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.

Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.
Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.
A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.

We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.

But why were they on his property, he asked.