In April of 2020, I vowed that the next time I was surrounded by a crowd of people I wouldn’t take the moment for granted.
When “two weeks to flatten the curve” bled into cloud bread, whipped coffee, Tiger King and no human interaction closer than six feet, I ached for community. Every bone in my introverted body longed to be surrounded by people. I missed crowded streets and busy classrooms and restaurants so loud the conversation hums.
I missed live music.
Actually, I didn’t miss live music. I missed people enjoying live music.
Two years later, I’m crowded on a couch in Barefoot’s Joe coffee shop on an unusually cold spring night. After a hectic week of tests and studying, I wedge myself between two of my closest friends.
Moments later, Andrea Von Kampen takes the stage with a mahogany guitar around her neck and Doc Martens tied around her feet. An immediate green flag in my book.
“Her voice reminds me of summer,” I whisper to my roommate.
“Yeah, it does,” she says.
Andrea’s energy was infectious. Her voice carried over the speaker like a gentle stream. Every lyric she sang was stunning.
As the concert went on, Andrea sang songs evoking images of traveling vagabonds, empty cabins and broken hearts. Concluding another beautiful song, she drops her hands from the guitar and begins telling stories of her mother playing a song called “Hard Times Come Again No More.”
The song has been sung by artists like James Taylor and Mavis Staples, and Andrea adds her name to the list and begins to gently strum her guitar.
“’Tis the song, the sigh of the weary…hard times, come again no more,” she sings, bringing an old song back to life.
As her peaceful song lulls me into a trance, I think of 17-year-old me. The one who, two years ago, vowed to never take the beauty of live music for granted. I’m squeezed on the couch sinking deeper into the leather with two of my closest friends pushing against my shoulders.
There is no social distancing. There is no silence.
“Many days you have lingered around my cabin door, oh hard times come again no more,” carries through the air.
I realize I am living in what I so desperately longed for two years ago.
As Andrea pleads for hard times to depart, I realize a hard season filled with many hard days has led me to this beautiful moment.
After the concert, I Google the other version of the song and learn that “Hard Times Come Again No More” was written over 160 years ago. For years, this song has resonated with people. As I became one of the many the lyrics hit home with, I realize that “Hard Times Come Again No More” is more than a nice, peaceful song to listen to at a coffee shop concert.
It is a testament to survival in the face of hard times.
Hard times will in fact come again. No matter how hard we sing and plead and pray, hard times will return. In this life, there will be hardship and tears and pain, and we’ll wish for it to go away — but that’s what makes “Hard Times Come Again No More” so beautiful.
When we leave a hard season, it is only natural to wish difficulties would die. But trials never end, and hard times never really go away.
Yet time and time again we continue to survive them. Only after you have overcome a trial can you wish for it to never return.
You can only wish away your troubles if you know the full bitterness of what it is you hope to never return.
As Andrea concludes her cover, I soak in the beauty of the moment. My own rendition of the song echoes in my heart as I wish for hard times to come again no more, knowing as long as I walk this earth, I am sure to experience more trials.
But I survived one hard time.
I will surely survive the next.
You can stream Andrea Von Kampen’s cover of “Hard Times Come Again No More” on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.
