The day I'm posting this, March 17, 2025, marks exactly 23 years since I played the Odyssey for the first time in front of an audience in my parents' living room in Oak Park.
That's almost half of my life that has been inextricably linked to Odysseus and his story, half my life singing these Muse-inspired songs which after half a life and almost 400 performances don't even seem like something I wrote: they seem like something I've always just known how to do or something I learned from another person. Which in a sense I did.
My performance last week at Lake Forest Academy was my first Odyssey show in over 4 months, the longest stretch I've gone without singing these songs since 2010 when I picked them up after a 4 year hiatus of not singing them at all.
I was starting to get comfortable with the idea that my relationship with Odysseus was going to recede, maybe peacefully fade away, as The Blues of Achilles and other projects surged in interest and prominence.
And I was okay with that. This crazy idea, these 24 songs have given me a satisfying career all my own. They've taken me farther than I ever expected to go. In music and the world.
But just as I was contemplating saying a gentle goodbye to Odysseus… a movie retelling (The Return), a new translation released this year, and the announcement of a big budget Christopher Nolan movie to be released in 2026. The Odyssey will have a(nother) moment in the mainstream and experience tells me that it will coincide with interest and opportunities for this modern bard and his song cycle.
There are legends of blues bards going to the crossroads at midnight and selling their souls to the Devil in exchange for musical fame, kleos.
I think I made a midnight crossroads deal of sorts with Odysseus. I got a musical career with enduring relevance, the permission to attach myself and my own story to stories that have survived 3000 years.
But in exchange, I am not just permitted to tell Odysseus' story: I am obligated. When he calls, I sing. Even if I'm weary. Even if his story sometimes weighs on me like it's my own. Which it has become after these 23 years.
That's the deal I made.
And I'd do it again in a heartbeat.