David Wilcox, Big Horizon

If anyone can create a perfect blend of passion, humanity, truth, and gentleness, it’s David Wilcox. If I could describe real life with the abstract – the physical with the figurative – and if I could use metaphors to tell about real down-in-the-dirt life, I could write about his music with music.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the talent that abounds in Wilcox. Not many do.

In Big Horizon, the music speaks for itself. Wilcox strikes the chords of his guitar with the precise dynamics that the lyrics call for. Songs like “That’s what the Lonely is For” and “Break in the Cup,” among others, illustrate truths in life that make every listener feel like the song was written for them.

The lyrics in “Break in the Cup” shed insight on our own inability to give happiness to another person, no matter how much love we pour on them: “I try so hard to please you / be the love that fills you up / I try to pour on sweet affection / but I think you got a broken cup.” The conclusion is that our source of happiness comes from somewhere else, somewhere outside of ourselves: “We cannot trade empty for empty / we must go to the waterfall / for there’s a break in the cup that holds love / inside us all.”

Although Wilcox never mentions God’s name in his songs, it is evident that even he cannot deny His presence and influence in our lives. In “Big Mistake,” his satirical humor refutes the theory of evolution simply by pointing out that our souls are something more than random chance. “They taught us kids in school / between the recess breaks / that the universe just sorta fell together like a big mistake / it started with a bang / that sent the pieces flying / then it cooled and twirled into dinosaurs and dandelions.” It continues, “It was a Big Mistake / to have eyes that see / to have love like this inside of me / to have lips that smile / as I swim your kiss / to have minds that will forever every part of this.”

And as if his power of verbal communication were not enough, Wilcox delivers each song with a voice both full of vitality and a soothing, soft passion. With his guitar and voice working with each other, the words of his music come alive, touching delicately yet powerfully on issues of humanity which are universally understood.

I find myself at a loss for words when I try to describe the depth of what he sings about. Wilcox has found his channel for communicating that which cannot be conveyed on paper or merely with speech, but in music, where life is illuminated, and every heart hears what his mouth sings to them.

It’s not really his guitar or his smooth and constant singing voice, or even the words that make his songs strike such a resonating chord in our own spirits. Perhaps it’s the combination of all three – the unity and wholeness that we find when each tool plays its own part. This is what music ought to be.

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