paper and pencils strewn about, guitars in hand, i sat in los angeles with cliff, the producer of this album, as we penned this new song together. long a solo artist and songwriter, it was my first full collaboration, a visit to high energy and laughter, a rhyming dictionary (every songwriter’s friend) at our side. we reached into our own lives and experiences to write.
when we finished recording it in nashville, the duet touched me as a poignant reminder of steadfast love.
in pondering what to write about this piece, i took out the jacket for the album RELEASED FROM THE HEART. my first full-length album, released in 1995, an hour of my original solo piano compositions, i dedicated it to my big brother wayne who i had lost a few years prior, but whose presence i could feel as i worked on this project.
in the jacket notes, next to this piece IN TRANSITION, i wrote “many changes for many around me. changes give us time and impetus to sort through (and feel) the stuff of our lives – the transitional time.” that would explain the minor, a key that invokes going inside.
i guess i will have to defer back to that. it’s no different now than it was then. there are still “many changes for many around me”. i would have thought that things would feather out on the change seesaw, maybe leveling out a bit. but now, 23 years later from those moments of recording remotely on stage in an auditorium at northwestern university, i see that life continues to be fluid, change continues to happen, we still have to sort and feel and go with the flow, we are still learning, growing, changing, we are ever on that seesaw. still in transition.
a number of years ago i planted a small seedling of lavender in my backyard garden over by the fence. i was wanting to tend this carefully and, eventually, be able to go outside and snip sprigs of lavender – for vases, for the pillows of visiting family or friends.
it was slowwww.
soon after, i found that the patch of black-eyed susans was entering the spot where the lavender was. black-eyed susans are beautiful and happy flowers, so i hesitated to do anything about this. i pulled the weeds in the garden and continued to hope for a flourishing lavender patch living side by side with what-would-be bright yellow blooms.
but then i talked to a friend. she told me that as diligent as i was about pulling the weeds, i also needed to pare back the black-eyed susans. she said the lavender needed space and air, its own dirt.
i followed her directions and carefully dug down to the roots of the black-eyed susans and transplanted them away from the lavender. i could almost feel the lavender breathe.
later, in the summer, with clippers in hand, i walked outside, over to the little garden by the fence, vase in hand, and, in the midst of a heavenly scent-cloud, snipped healthy sprigs of purple.
then i added this piece to the track line-up for the album RIGHT NOW.
i distinctly remember recording this. i was at yamaha artist services in nyc and it was winter. the word “peace” was on a list of words i wanted to use as titles for pieces. “peace” is a big word for me….i’ve talked about how there are peace signs and the word peace all over our home and it was no different when i wrote this. the trouble with writing and using a big word is that you feel an imperative to make it count. there is a kind of heavy emphasis on this choice to use THIS word as a title – that you write well enough to support such a big word, that you do it justice, that it FEELS what the word feels like. it’s super-charged with self-induced pressure.
but the moments i spent composing this were extraordinarily special and i was wrapped in a cloak of peacefulness and love. it is not a complex piece of music; it has a repeating theme and, like a song with lyrics, returns to that theme again and again. like statement-question-answer-lift-statement-question-answer-lift structure.
“it’s fine” ken, in his infinite wisdom, orchestrated this so my heart weeps with gratitude each time i listen. cello lines and strings and french horn pull the simple melody out of the place of simplicity and reach, for me, a depth of being.
every artist has compositions that are their favorites, the ones that really express who they are. maybe it’s because i can so distinctly remember initially recording this. maybe it’s because i remember being back in the studio in chicago with ken as he tracked the other instrumentation. maybe it’s because it’s THAT word, the piece with THAT title. regardless of the reason, THIS is one of mine.
download PEACE track 5 on AS IT IS on iTunes or on CDBaby
over and over and over we are reminded. every second counts. it even gets trite sometimes. but then, once again, something makes time come crashing to a halt, where everything moves in slow motion and we are crushed with the inevitability of a change we didn’t anticipate, plan for, dream of or, even, want.
i wrote this song when heidi told me about waiting for the results of her mammogram, ultrasound, biopsy. she spoke of the moment her doctor called; she asked him to hold on and she walked to the mirror to look at herself before her whole life changed. THOSE WORDS impacted me enormously. i couldn’t get the vision out of my mind and wrote this for her. we went on to use this song when we performed (heidi – breast cancer survivor and inspirational speaker, me – writing songs and music to wrap through and around the events) as part of cancer survivor celebrations, walks, runs, hospital and pharmaceutical recognitions, susan g komen foundation, y-me breast cancer organization, american cancer society, gilda radner’s gilda club, young survival coalition, the san antonio breast cancer symposium, bristol-myers squibb tour of hope, living beyond breast cancer…
but this song goes beyond cancer survivorship. time can change and our lives can turn in more ways than we care to think about. there are many challenges, in many categories. the older i get, the more i see it.
on our roadtrip through the i-can’t-get-enough-of-it rocky mountains and intensely beautiful southwest, we talked about one second moving into the next. (don’t worry – lots of time we talk about things like twizzlers or our obsession with mission chips or we talk the scion into going up steep mountains.) and we talked about how, no matter what happens in a moment, it would be in our very best interest to linger in each one and then move into the next moment without carrying the stuff of the previous one. “it’s all new,” we agreed.
each individual moment counts. each one is different. yes, each one…each moment…trite as it sounds…is a gift.
download IN A SPLIT SECOND – track 11 on AS SURE AS THE SUN on iTUNES and CDBaby
the “arnson-goodbye” is infamous. it is an endless loop that strays as far away from “goodbye” as possible. on the phone, standing by the side of the car in the driveway, at the dorm room door, next to the apartment building in boston or a place in the high colorado mountains, the goodbye just goes on and on. the conversation ebbs and swells, the tide of “the leave” determined by how long it will be till “the next time.” i really can’t be blamed, so i hope my children are reading this. it has been passed down through generations; we are all dna-driven to have this longgggg goodbye, this aversion to actually DO-ing it: leaving.
yup. i truly do hate to say goodbye. i come by it honestly. so, now you get my thready-ness, yes?
the choir, ukulele band and handbell players all came to our house last week. it was the end of the year party. it’s a tradition to gather here several times a year to celebrate all the music we make together; everyone brings food (amazing dishes and treats) and drinks (wine and delicious frozen drinks or other concoctions ala dan) to pass. conversation is loud and laughter punctuates everything. dogdog runs out to greet people and revels in the fact that babycat is locked away for the party. we crowd foods onto our dining room table and a variety of other flat surfaces. when we are lucky it is nice out and people can spill out onto the deck and the patio. it is joyous!
many moments during the evening i will find myself just looking around at these dear people…a community…my community…our community…and i will have a rush of wonder and gratitude and great fondness; d and i both love them. they are these faces in our life and it is the love with which they surround us, just like the devoted love in this song, that makes me feel more.
there are those moments. the overwhelmed ones. when you feel like all is not going your way. those are the moments that this piece of music is about. as much as i’d like to think i always remember to 1. stop 2. take stock and 3. give thanks, i need a reminder from time to time. TAKING STOCK (listen below) from the album RIGHT NOW is all about remembering to have gratitude, for where i am, any second of any hour of any day of any year of any time….
one of my treasured concert memories is a concert where The Boy played with me. i loved all the laughter leading up to it as he wailed on his tenor in my studio. we had so much fun. this song LET ME TAKE YOU BACK (listen below) makes me think of him. originally a solo piano piece and the title track for a pair of albums LET ME TAKE YOU BACK Volumes 1 & 2 (my solo piano arrangements of 60’s and 70’s songs), the infamous ken orchestrated it for the album AS IT IS with saxophone and thereafter, in live performance, it belonged to craig. let me take you back totally takes me back to those days.
have a cup of coffee (or, if it is later in the day, a glass of wine) and sit back with me. and, since the LET ME TAKE YOU BACK albums are no longer available, maybe dig out your old 45’s of john denver, dan fogelberg, pete seeger, gordon lightfoot, bread, bob dylan, loggins and messina, jim croce, carole king, joni mitchell, carly simon…well, you get the picture…and play them on a record player.
