For the past couple of years, I’ve been covering the song I’ve Been Everywhere at many of our gigs. It was written in 1959 by Australian songwriter Geoff Mack, featuring towns in Australia. He later adapted the song with the help of a North American atlas, and Hank Snow made it a number-one hit. At first, I thought it would be a fun challenge to learn the song, but then I realized the secret was all in the rhythm—a cadence that allowed the words to flow easily. As I learned to relax into the rhythm, memorization came naturally without much effort.
I’ve been to Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota, Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota, Wichita, Tulsa, Ottawa, Oklahoma, Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, La Paloma, Bangor, Baltimore, Salvador, Amarillo, Tocopilla, Barranquilla, and Padilla… I’ve Been Everywhere
Rhythm is essential. It’s the glue, not only in a song but in all of life. For rhythm to exist, there must be forward movement—waves breaking on the shoreline, clouds moving across the sky, water dripping through the coffee maker, and my heart pumping blood through miles of arteries and veins, not missing a beat. It’s the starts. The stops. The space between. That’s where rhythm lives. These delineators of time and space transform a jumble of words, notes, run-on sentences, and even Google calendars into small, bite-sized, meaningful measures that make up the rhythm of each day. And the key, I believe, to finding this rhythm is in how I begin.
Pat McLaughlin, a musician/singer/songwriter in Nashville, whom I have long admired, is a master at getting rhythm. Before he sings a word, he plays a groove on his guitar that pulls the other musicians and the audience into the heartbeat of the song. By the time he gets to the first verse, everyone is on board and on the edge of their seats, eager for what comes next. It’s amazing to experience.
Even though these summer months have felt a bit overwhelming at times, moving from one crisis to the next, I realized this morning that getting the rhythm is just a matter of making a few edits—adding some starts and stops, like punctuation, if you will.
For me, this means starting my day with a morning routine that touches on a few soul-nurturing habits, such as meeting the sunrise for coffee, engaging in gentle yoga poses, meditation, and writing—daily markers in time and space. It’s a back-to-school kind of rhythm—the smell of a freshly sharpened pencil, a pretty notebook, and a blank piece of college-ruled notebook paper. And in punctuating every sentence with gratitude. Then the story suddenly starts to make more sense, and my nervous system can take a breather.
Every moment is a movement, for life and breath to flow right through. Let it Flow
The rhythm is a cadence, the quiet intelligence moving through all of life. It carries us along from one moment to the next, one pause, one breath, one beat at a time.