Jorma Kaukonen: Genesis

SONG Genesis

WRITTEN BY Jorma Kaukonen

PERFORMED BY Jorma Kaukonen

APPEARS ON Quah (1974)

In 1965, Paul Kanter recruited his friend Jorma Kaukonen to play lead guitar for the Jefferson Airplane, a band Kanter was helping  form. Kaukonen thought of himself as an acoustic blues purist and expressed reluctance to join the new group. He changed his mind after considering the technical possibilities offered by the electric guitar; Kaukonen adapted his finger-picking style to the music of psychedelia and became a defining part of the Airplane's unique sound. By 1972, the Airplane had split into cliques, and Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady left the band in favor of Hot Tuna, a side project originally formed to play the music of the Reverend Gary Davis.

Kaukonen recorded his initial solo album in 1974, the well-received Quah. "Genesis," Quah's first track, remains his best song and is a staple of his live act. Exquisitely gentle (one can imagine it as one side of a conversation occurring in bed), "Genesis" tells of a man promising to overcome his vulnerabilities if the woman he loves will share a future with him. In the first verse, he implores her to remember the good things about them:

Time has come for us to pause
And think of living as it was

while admitting that it's not enough ("into the future we must cross"). He admits that a hard shell surrounds him ("...I'm hard than a wall/A marble shaft...), but claims that it is not as important as her love and beseeches her not to break up with him.

Next comes the wonderful, touching third verse in which he acknowledges that life with him won't be easy ("Skies of blue had turned to gray"), but will be honest and true ("I never looked away"). The man drives home the point by telling the truth of things: She'll always be with him, but they can't shut out life:

And though I'm feeling you inside
My life is rolling with the tide

They can make it better, though, by remaining staying together and remaining true to each other ("I'd like to see it be an open ride/Along with you"). He reminds her that time, which doesn't belong to them, passes rapidly, then argues the whatever they are going through now will make them stronger, and closes by restating her incredible importance to him:

And when we came out into view
And there I found myself with you
When breathing felt like something new, new

Is "Genesis" an apology? Partly. But mostly it seems like the testimony of a man about to lose someone he loves because he has been holding himself back. By repeatedly telling her how much she means to him and by recognizing the validity of her feelings, he hopes to give himself and them and second chance. The song concludes uncertainly, without an answer to his plea. But for us, that's for the best: It's never a bad thing to remember that our offers can be too little, too late. In this sense, "Genesis" is a cautionary account that we can all take to heart.

LYRICS
Time has come for us to pause
And think of living as it was
Into the future we must cross, must cross
I'd like to go with you
And I'd like to go with you

You say I'm harder than a wall
A marble shaft about to fall
I love you dearer than them all, them all
So let me stay with you
So let me stay with you

And as we walked into the day
Skies of blue had turned to grey
I might have not been clear to say, to say
I never looked away
I never looked away

And though I'm feeling you inside
My life is rolling with the tide
I'd like to see it be an open ride
Along with you
Going along with you

The time we borrowed from ourselves
Can't stay within a vaulted well
And living turns into a lender's will
So let me come with you
And let me come with you

And when we came out into view
And there I found myself with you
When breathing felt like something new, new
Along with you
Going along with you

Live circa 1990:


The original 1974 version (very cool montage):


From 2003, with Hot Tuna:


This 1969 Jefferson Airplance performance, from Woodstock, of "3/5's Of A Mile In Ten Seconds" shows off Kaukonen's prowess on the electric guitar and demonstrates his importance to their sound:


Widespread Panic covers "Genesis" (2002):


Kaukonen and Widespread Panic's John Bell: