Cover Lay Down

I was born on Superbowl Sunday 1973, in a hospital just outside Atlanta; apocryphally, the doctor praised my mother for completing her labor just in time for kickoff. It would be another decade before Ronald Reagan signed Martin Luther King Jr. Day into law, tying my birth to King’s, and in the process making my birthday weekend a bank holiday, and – as I have become a teacher by trade – a long weekend ripe for pensiveness.

Now I’m 45, and in many ways, I’m still finding my footing. It’s not impostor syndrome – I’m good at what I do, own my faults and habits, and work hard to do it well every day. I teach my students that life is greater with a sense of grown and growing capacity, and a honed-to-instinct sense of how and what to offer in a given situation, and I practice what I preach. But I’ve learned to embrace the moment, too: to watch, and be watchful, knowing that to account for ground conditions quickly, and adapt accordingly, is built on a foundation of trust that there is a place for me in the things to come, so that we can find it, and serve therein.

I’m not a fatalist. I’m not one of those folks that believes in destiny. I’m not sure if I was born for anything, particularly. But I do believe that the world has given me much, and I owe it the best of what I have to give. And it is this sense of grateful obligation, more than anything, that fuels my days and my choices, pushing me towards mindful motion, even on days such as this, when the cold comes, and – for a moment, at least – we have time for reflection.

So come, celebrate with me the possibility of birth and being with this haphazard mix: in honor of Reverend Doctor King, and of my own birth, and of yours, too, in an era where social justice is both needful and named. We were born for this, whatever this is. How wonderful it is to share this path together, today and in the days to come, as we work to build the world anew.

• Meg Hutchinson: Born In Time (orig. Bob Dylan) [2011]

• Slaid Cleaves: This Morning I Am Born Again (orig. Woody Guthrie) [2000]
• Lucy Kaplansky: This Morning I Am Born Again (ibid.) [2012]

• Allysen Callery: I Wasn’t Born To Follow (orig. The Byrds) [2016]

• Frank Turner: Born To Run (orig. Bruce Springsteen) [2014]

• Timbuk 3: Born To Be Wild (orig. Steppenwolf) [1994]

• Josh Krajcik: Born Under A Bad Sign (orig. Albert King) [2014]

• Shinterymi: I Was Born For This (orig. Austin Wintery) [2016]

• Linda Gabrielsen: Born To Die (orig. Lana Del Rey) [2013]

• Tobias Wilner ft. Sonya Kitchell: Born To Be Loved (orig. Lucinda Williams) [2016]

• Among Blue: Born At The Right Time (orig. Paul Simon) [2014]

• The Burns Sisters: Free Born Man (orig. Ewan MacColl) [2015]

• Jason Isbell & Amanda Shires: Born in the USA (orig. Bruce Springsteen) [2014]
• Richard Shindell: Born in the USA (orig. Bruce Springsteen) [2007]

Always ad-free and artist-centric, Cover Lay Down has been digging deep at the ethnographic intersection of folkways and coversong since 2007 thanks to the support of artists, labels, promoters, and YOU. So do your part: listen, love, like, and above all, purchase the music, the better to keep it alive.

And if, in the end, you’ve got goodwill to spare, and want to help keep the music flowing? Please, consider a contribution to Cover Lay Down. All gifts go directly to bandwidth and server costs; all donors receive undying praise, and a special blogger-curated gift mixtape of over 50 well-loved but otherwise unshared covers from 2016-2017, including exclusive live covers from our very own Unity House Concert series.