Circle of Error

I'm very happy to present the first ever guest entry on Songs That Explain, written by my good friend Kevin Davis. I've known Kevin for over a decade and have had the pleasure of watching his career as a musician grow and change in remarkable ways. He has been a member of the bands Glowworm, Pacific UV, and Strange Holliday, and is currently making music under his own name. His music has been featured, among other places, on the HBO series Californication and the public radio program This American Life.  Please visit his new blog at www.kevinscottdavis.net or listen to his new album at www.kevindavismusic.com. -- Joel

Dm7, F, C, G. Who starts a song with what has been, historically speaking, the least resolved chord in the world? Matt Slocum. And for good reason. His 1995 song “Circle of Error” is about trials and mistakes, and being stuck in a self-inflicted pattern of dubious repetition. Here in the key of C, a D minor chord has no strong pull to resolve upward or downward, giving the progression the feel of having no definite beginning or end. The usually dominant G chord, which wants so badly to resolve to the key's center of C, is never given a chance to, but is always followed again by the D minor, forcing the progression to start over again. The pattern could repeat endlessly. Even on the recording, Slocum’s band opts for a fade out instead of an ending, suggesting that the song continues on well past the audible mark. 

“Can I ask? Can I find? Can I scream for you to forgive the time I spend on this awful carousel again? In my circle of error, I go round and round again…”

My first experience hearing this song was when I was 16. I attended a concert by a local folk -rock band, in the sanctuary of a church near my small hometown in Northern California. I hadn’t expected a lot, but was soon struck by two things. First, the otherwise all-male group was fronted by a female singer – a young, shy blonde, standing very still on stage, and holding the microphone as if it was a foreign object, her blue eyes scanning the room nervously but sweetly. There were not a lot of musicians in my small town, and a sight like this was even stranger. It was obvious that the guitarist was the musical force behind the band- but he did something smart: just like Matt Slocum, he stepped into the background and let someone a little more iconic, and with an untrained, naturally beautiful voice – like Leigh Nash –  take a very unassuming lead. 

The second thing, which I’ll never forget, was when the group announced a cover by a band called Sixpence None the Richer. They strummed that first D minor in “Circle of Error”, and I was enthralled. The singer’s fragile voice had a crisp purity, giving the song’s lyrics a transparency that felt mature beyond the band’s collective age. I knew I had to track down the song and figure out who the band was.

After the concert was over, a friend introduced me to the musicians, whom I was eager to commend. We got invited to a party, and hung out together in someone’s living room late into the evening. Being the church-hatched youth we were, acoustic guitars came out and whittling away ensued. I had been playing guitar for about a year and half then, and eventually one landed in my lap. By the end of the night, I was invited to join the band. That was it. I was in my first band. No auditions, just mutual youthful exuberance, and a sort of innocent magic exploding around the room. 

I must have played “Circle of Error” a thousand times over the next two years. It was the first cover I ever performed. It contained my very first guitar solo. And it was the introduction to my long-lasting love of Sixpence's music. I even went on to major in music in college, learning to arrange strings, initially, because I wanted to be able to do it as beautifully as Matt Slocum did on their self-titled album.

Fast-forward fourteen years. I am now 31, and though I still cannot arrange strings as beautifully as Mr. Slocum, music has provided the pathway into almost every major endeavor in my life. A lot of shows, a lot of bands, a lot of recordings, and a lot of good old-fashioned band breakups have happened in that span of that time, and I owe Sixpence thanks for inspiring me to get started. 

Other things have happened too. It’s tough to keep up youthful innocence in the big, bad, world—especially in the world of music. This is something Sixpence should know well, if their tumultuous history with the record label industry is any indication. If you were to meet me today, I’d have to introduce myself as a struggling artist, a recovering alcoholic, and, above all things, a prodigal son. As it turns out, my own life has been about trials and mistakes, and self-inflicted patterns of dubious repetition. How little I’d understood at 16 what Slocum was writing about, how he might have felt—and how well I understand it now! I think many others must understand it, too; as the apostle Paul wrote, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, and what I hate I do.” (Romans 7:15)

I’ll end here, without any great punctuation on the positivity or ease of Christian life or making music. But I will say, with a great big smile, that in 2010, I came back to my faith, and learned for the first time how to really get up off the floor and begin again, and again, and again…