Guelph, ON-Based Blues Artist David Deacon Returns to Music With Philosophical, Humbly Accepting “Arc Of Life”
It can be very difficult to live life on life’s terms, and so Guelph, ON-based blues artist David Deacon gives us a dose of gentle reality in his humbly philosophical song “Arc of Life.”
An introspective, wailing guitar ballad sung in Deacon’s signature gravely tone, “Arc of Life,” encourages the listener to examine their life without vanity, without artifice, and with a mature and ultimately peaceful acceptance.
“It’s the arc of life
A bright or darkened star
It’s our mark on life
What’s done is what we are
What’s done is what we are”
“I wrote ‘Arc of Life’ because I always wanted to have a non-secular song that spoke to a life in a larger sense,” Deacon explains. “I wanted something that spoke about individuals and not to some mystic abstract. As well I wanted to make clear my view that I believe that what we do is what we are – not what we hoped or believed or just talked about.”
“Arc of Life” is Deacon’s first single from his forthcoming album Four, out this May, which is like a ride that starts out on a freeway, takes a long stretch down a winding road, makes a few off-road excursions, and ultimately has faith that just keeping on will get you somewhere interesting. It was written upon Deacon’s return to the music scene after a long hiatus. After a decade of hard work in this intense industry, Deacon chose to leave music. Now, returning to the scene, he’s excited to play and create with the new technology that redefines what it means to be a musician and share his work with the world.
David Deacon can be described as Blues and Roots music attached to a 6’5 rangy-and-rugged guy. His voice sounds like it could have an atomic decay number attached to it (and that’s a damn good thing). His bluesy, old-school rock/ballad storytelling spends time digging into the psyche of someone who has travelled many roads and the people he’s met along the way. If you like Dire Straits or Tom Waits, maybe Leonard Cohen (if he rode motorcycles), Dylan for sure, and perhaps Van Morrison, you will definitely love David Deacon.
Listen to “Arc of Life” below and learn more via our mini-interview.
Care to introduce yourself?
I’ve led a bit of an eclectic life. I dropped out of University to study painting and then worked as an artist for a few years. I also spent many years racing cars while trying to find a way to make a living in business. I have been interested in poetry for almost as long as I have been interested in music, so lyrics have always been a big part of what kind of music and what artists most interested me. In the end, all of these things I believe, have shaped how I go at my own music. In fact, it was because of a poetry reading I did in NYC in a bar on the upper east side one time that I got inspired to try music. There was a very talented young singer who opened for my reading and thought…..wow….it’s going to be hard to have the audience think that I should be the main act. So when I got back to Toronto, I set about starting a band.
Tell us about the process of writing “Arc Of Life.”
This is perhaps a reflection of how I tend to end up writing a lot of things. Something happens, and it provokes some thoughts and images, and then it seems to fall into a song. In 2022 I was watching a memorial service of a relative, and I was thinking, isn’t it too bad there isn’t a non-secular piece of music to celebrate life instead of the music always tending to be about a deity. So I started to write one that afternoon, and it became Arc of Life. At the heart of it, is a long-held notion that I have that, – we are what we do. And I took that notion and juxtaposed it with how people remember others, and realized that it was pretty much always about things they did and so I had a place of departure for how to root the whole thought and song. From a melody perspective, it is like all my songs….I have an idea, I record it acapella on my phone and send it to Andy Ryan (who plays guitar on all the songs). Andy does the composing, the arrangement that makes it into a complete composition.
What’s it like being a musician in Guelph?
I don’t think it matters too much where you are a musician in the world today. With the internet, the ability to hear and find out about all kinds of music is at our fingertips. Therefore to me, where you are isn’t as important as what you think and what songs, grooves, genres, and ideas, touch you and why. Guelph is a nice place to live and features as such in a song from this upcoming album called, Rising Up Again. I guess if there is something specific about it, maybe it’s been an easy place for a slightly more reflective approach to writing music since it is a fairly quiet environment.
Who was the first Canadian artist to blow you away?
That’s difficult to answer because I have been influenced by Canadian artists as diverse as Joni Mitchell to Haydain Neale (Jack Soul). Perhaps Neil Young and Robbie Robertson impacted my musical thinking the most and Leonard Cohen my writing.
You’ve been making music for a short bit now. What’s one piece of advice you can offer to those starting out?
I’m not sure someone would like my advice until I achieve a level of success that they think is meaningful, but the one piece of advice I can be sure of is – do the music that touches you, says what you want to say personally and then no matter the result you will feel the reward of the journey. The other part of that idea that works is – if what you talk about is who you truly are, it’s hard to forget who you are, and that’s at the heart of any life worth living.