Broken Finger Blues - Richard Swift (and this Author)

I gotta hand it to myself to write a post one-handed

Not a prop splint, but an 18-year-old relic from back when I broke my left middle finger. Glad I didn’t throw it away.

That’s how dedicated I am to you all.

Despite my recent digital disaster, I will not allow a week to pass without providing a story of song and solemnity.

I suppose this is the part where I tell you what happened.

Like all the best stories, this one features dogs.

Bernie in front, one-eyed Buster on the armrest; the calm before the storm. Photo by Karen Meyer, wife extraordinaire.

Bernie, who’s been ballyhooed about in many a previous post, is my heterochromatic blue and brown-eyed, 82-pound lovable American Staffordshire Terrier. Buster, the shaggy 8-pound shih tzu (in photo above), is one of my favorite dog walking clients, whom my wife and I boarded this week while his human parents went out of town for 5 days.

Bernie is amazing with tiny dogs and Buster is amazingly not at all anxious with colossus canines more than ten times his size. Walking them together, though, is a challenge for one person.

So on day 3, when my wife would be at work and unavailable to walk them with me, I asked my friend Alisa to join me, an invitation which she gladly accepted.

The walk begins uneventfully, Alisa leading Buster, who being so close to the ground, tends to stop every few feet to sniff the urban landscape. Buster, not Alisa, though she is in fact short and has an impressive olfactorial sensitivity.

We’re headed for Mills College, a lovely, gloriously landscaped campus about a half mile from my home. About a block away from the entrance, on the other side of the street, a young teenage girl, who couldn’t have weighed more than 90 pounds (40kg to my metric friends) is walking a giant black cane corso. If you don’t know what a cane corso is, here’s a picture:

These mastiffs are usually between 110 and 130 pounds and this one was at the upper end of that. I used to walk a 1-year-old cane corso with a choke chain and I could barely control it. These dogs are bred to be guard dogs. Bernie is a big pitbull who can seem scary to the uninitiated, but he’s tiny compared to a cane corso.

I can tell that this girl does not have control of the dog at all. She is with a man who seems maybe to be an older brother or a youngish father and is not taking the reins while the dog clearly has its gaze set on us from across the street.

I’m hyper-aware in general, but as a dog walker I’m extra hyper-aware of any potential danger. I know this dog is going to come charging at us. I tell Alisa in no uncertain terms to pick up Buster and hold him tight. I grab Bernie’s leash close to his body and wrap the cord around my hands twice. As I do this, the cane corso is dragging the girl across the street, through traffic, and coming right for us.

Bernie is pulling hard and barking. I’m using all my strength to keep his head and body blocked by my own, but mostly his head. I know that if the dogs lock onto each other this will be real bad. I feel the mastiff against my back and am adjusting myself so that neither of their heads can get to each other. In the process, I end up essentially tackling Bernie to the ground, the two of us smashed into a swath of low bushes.

I really don’t know what happens next. Maybe Alisa will leave a comment and fill in the gap. But what I think occurs is that the man (I really was focused on the dog, not the people) with the girl is able to grab the cane corso’s leash and pull him off me.

By the time Bernie and I stand back up, the three of them are off running down the street.

I’m completely shaken up but aware that this could have been so much worse. Bernie is fine, Alisa and Buster are fine. And I’m fine, other than a tear in my sweat pants. And my right hand is throbbing, but I figure I just jammed it in the melee.

We skip the excursion to Mills College and head back home, me cursing and ranting about why the fuck people would bring untrained giant mastiffs out into populated areas. It’s such a status thing —and a home alarm system too— especially here in Oakland, California (and I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m stereotyping), to have a huge scary dog in your yard. I walk dogs in some of the city’s roughest neighborhoods and I pass by front yards with growling, barking rottweilers, dobermans, german shepherds, presa canarios and other large, no-nonsense breeds. I pay close attention to how secure those fences and gates are. One previous client whose 11 year old pit-mix I adore lives in such a neighborhood, and I was thankful when she quit her job and didn’t need me to walk her dog anymore.

I don’t have a problem with the breeds at all. Any breed. Cane corsos and other mastiffs can be sweet and affectionate and are super smart. It’s just that the humans who buy and adopt them are often not sweet or affectionate or super smart.

When we get home, I’m finally calming down a bit. I go to get Alisa and myself some water from the fridge and without thinking, I reach for the door handle with my right hand. As soon as I grab it, my middle finger bends and the pain is eye-wateringly intense. Immediately I know it’s broken. I’ve broken the same finger on the opposite hand before and the sensory deja vu is overwhelming.

Thankfully, I still have the metal splint that I received from the doctor the first time I broke my finger. After icing it to numbness, I brace the damaged digit, feed the pups, take three Advil and collapse on the couch with Bernie, Buster and a cold brew.

Richard Swift, taken By Ella Mullins - Flickr.com, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70567260

I had plans for two different Earworm and Song Loops posts this week.

I even began rough drafts of each. But like the famous saying goes: How do you make God laugh? Tell him/her/them your plans.

I knew that even with one hand, I wasn’t going to skip a week of writing. It’s a form of processing for me. A kind of therapy. Not doing it gives me heartburn. Things get backed up that are supposed to come out.

I wanted to write about this misadventure but needed a song to go with it. The perfect sonic companion to this experience.

I googled “broken finger songs” as none came to mind on my own.

That’s not entirely true. I did think about choosing a song from the excellent soul revival band St. Paul & The Broken Bones, but decided against it as I was hoping to find something more directly connected to my own dinged digit.

Because I love to share new music, even if it’s not exactly an earworm, I did discover just now a brand new single by St. Paul & the Broken Bones. It’s much more spare than their earlier, full-bodied big-band sound. But I like that they’re trying new things.

Let me know what you think of it in the comments!

Proving that stick-to-itiveness gets rewarded and there is a song for every occasion, I did finally find the song best suited to accompany my traumatic injury.

“Broken Finger Blues” by Richard Swift.

In fact, I was so excited by this sonic discovery that I went and slammed the back door to my house directly on my broken finger!

No, seriously. I did.

I don’t know if my subconscious is a masochist or I’m just a major klutz with an irony fetish, but as I was coming in from the backyard I somehow crushed the fingertip of my broken middle finger in the door jam.

My wife can tell you how loud and for how long I cursed.

Well sorta. She was wearing her bluetooth headphones, washing the dishes, so only heard some of my howling. I did not want to admit to her what I’d just done. It was so completely idiotic and unbelievable. If it were in a movie or a novel, the viewer or reader would yell out with exasperation, “Oh come on!”

I felt like I was all 3 Stooges combined into one person. Only not nearly as funny. Or maybe just as unfunny depending on your opinion of The 3 Stooges.

After trying (and thanks to my scissors-wielding wife, succeeding) to get the splint off my finger while it swelled to twice its size beneath the tape, I iced it for the next hour.

The pain has since subsided but the shame is everlasting. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

But let’s get back to Richard Swift.

I wasn’t familiar with his song “Broken Finger Blues” — it happens to be his 2nd most played song on Spotify (over 12 million plays!) — but I played it and really liked it. I was so relieved, as I’d hate to have discovered the perfect song title and end up finding the music less than up to snuff.

I can’t say that “BFB” sounds like a traditional blues tune, but it’s got definite R&B vibes, reminding me a little bit of Marvin Gaye, of that classic Motown groove.

I played a few more songs of Richard Swift, an artist I did not know anything about. Each song was as good as the next, revealing a sound with hints of soul, folk, rock, psychedelia, and bedroom pop. How did I not know about this guy?

I was so excited to have found a new artist to follow and explore that I forgot that my finger was broken.

I Wikipedia’d Richard Swift and noticed that he had several solo albums. And that he had played with and been a member of an insane amount of famous bands and artists. Here’s an incomplete list:

The Shins, Damien Jurado, David Bazan (of Pedro the Lion), Foxygen, Jessie Baylin, Nathaniel Rateliff, Lucius, Lonnie Holley, The Mynabirds, Wake Owl, Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab, Gardens & Villa, Cayucas, Fleet Foxes, Mango Safari and Guster. Oh yeah, he was also a part of The Black Keys' live band during their 2014–2015 tour, performing as their touring bassist and backing singer.

So I really did know Richard Swift. I’d been listening to him for decades. And so have you.

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My enthusiasm, though, dampened considerably when I learned that Richard Swift had passed away in 2018 at the age of 41 from complications from alcohol-related disease and organ failure.

His death won’t stop me from exploring his extensive back catalogue, with 7 solo albums, countless EPs, and appearances playing with some of this millenium’s most important artists. Clearly, Richard was one of our most important artists as well. I look forward to diving deeper into his music throughout the year.

If I don’t die from the broken finger blues first.

I know there are a lot of knowledgable music afficionados in the Earworm and Song Loops audience. So I’m reaching out to you to tell me which Richard Swift songs and albums are must listens. As someone who is brand new to his music, please fill in the Swiftian blanks that I clearly have left out of this piece.

Regarding broken bones, I’m sure you all have some lovely stories to tell on that front too. Even if (hopefully) not as embarrassingly inane as slamming a broken finger in a door.

Leave your thoughts in the comments!

And, as always — thanks for reading.