we hike along this trail often, so often we know it well, its curves and windy way through the trees, the meadows, the boggy areas, the marshland near the river. only when we go earlier in the day do we see the morning glory. only when the sun is not too high in the sky are these beauties wide open, begging for attention on this, their day.
morning glory blossoms only last one day. they bloom in the early morning and by late afternoon have closed their fragile petals. the star in the middle of the glorybloom is stunning, the vine winds willy-nilly through the underbrush.
i always feel fortunate to be witness to the morning glory, though i am haunted by a song about morning glories that i cannot remember and haven’t ever spoken about. it was written by a man who stole morning glory moments from young women – from me – in vile self-serving predatory hunger.
i can hear the strains of finger-picked guitar, the croon of his easy, practiced singing voice. i know the lyrics ‘morning glory’ are in the lyrics of the song – i can practically taste it every single time we pass morning glory. but i cannot come up with the song and, since it was probably not published, i likely won’t be able to find it so it remains amorphous but potent.
and now, passing the pink and white glory holding hands and stepping together, i think it is probably time to sage the morning glory. it is time to exhale, to ease my mind into different lyrics – like the lyrics john denver sang in the song today, the lyrics of gentleness, of soft reverence for the other, of sweet love, of gratitude and appreciation, of new dawn, of fleeting time, of presence.
“today while the blossom still clings to the vine/i’ll taste your strawberries, i’ll drink your sweet wine/a million tomorrows may all pass away/e’er i forget all the joy that is mine today.” (today – randy sparks)
england dan and john ford coley played over and over on my bedside cassette player. even now i’d happily pay dearly for tickets to a concert. it’s not possible anymore. but they rank up there as one of my favorite duos in the 70s and certainly must have been rumi fans. radio listeners in my graduating class would be hard-pressed to say they didn’t know every word of the songs “i’d really love to see you tonight” and “nights are forever without you”, both top-tens.
before i moved from long island, there was this boy who made dinner for me at his tiny apartment above his mom and dad’s house. at the end of dinner he tried to lure me into staying on the island, playing dan and john’s song “we’ll never have to say goodbye again”, which also peaked on the ac chart at number one. or wait…was it christopher cross’ “never be the same”??? either way, i barely knew him. before dessert, i waved from the window of my car as i pulled away.
the wall leading to the underpass was painted and we passed it each time we drove over to our girl’s place. finally, we caught the stoplight and i could take a picture. rumi’s words in a mural, simplifying it all, “love is the bridge between you and everything else.”
it makes me think of england dan and john ford coley.
“light of the world, shine on me, love is the answer shine on us all, set us free, love is the answer
and when you feel afraid, love one another when you’ve lost your way, love one another when you’re all alone, love one another when you’re far from home, love one another when you’re down and out, love one another whenall your hope’s run out, love one another when you need a friend, love one another when you’re near the end, love we got to love, we got to love one another…”
(john wilcox / kasim sulton / roger powell / todd rundgren)
i daresay that leading with love – demonstrably powerful, full of kindness and fairness and grace, sans fear and agenda and grudge – might really be the answer. to most questions.
mondegreen. it’s a mondegreen. this is not an anomaly. mondegreens happen.
it is stunning how often we catch ourselves singing nonsensical lyrics to songs we have listened to through time: ever since the dark ages of record players in the living room to cassette players next to our beds to transistor radios on our beach towels to giant portable cd players with carrying handles equipped with batteries so you could lug them anywhere to ipods that plugged into the car to phones that had-it-all to, well, record players again.
at the top of our lungs we will sing these lyrics – they sound like what is being sung, but who really knows, anyway.
then, one day, you see them written down, you read the jacket (in caveman behavior), you glance at the with-lyrics youtube, you google them…and suddenly…you realize you had no idea what the song was about and you had made up words that made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
or, in the case of “don’t bring me down” by ELO, they were the ones making no sense. because for years and years and years when they sing the chorus “don’t bring me dowwwwwwwn”, i – and the rest of the singing-along-world – would finish it with “bruce!” so it would go like this: don’t bring me dowwwwwwn…..bruce!….don’t bring me dowwwwwwn…….bruce!….don’t bring me dowwwwwn……bruce!….don’t bring me down!
but, though it made complete sense to me, it was not “bruce”. it was “groose”…just an ad-lib by jeff lynne. sigh. “you’re lookin’ good, just like a snake in the grass” – yup. made sense to me.
or what about toto missing the rains down in africa? nope. they are singing, “i bless the rains down in africa!” i have sung about their missing the rain since they released that song the year of my first wedding, now forty years ago.
i don’t even want to write what i was singing to the bruce-springsteen-manfred-mann-earth-band song “blinded by the light“, though i think simply everyone was singing THAT wrong.
after i learned this behavior had a name “mondegreen” – this “mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it new meaning. …created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to hear a lyric clearly, substitutes words that sound similar and make some kind of sense.” (wikipedia) – i realized that there was some forgiveness in singing all the wrong words.
going back, though, after you come to grips with the real lyrics, tossing aside your memorized gibberish, you kind of have to wonder anew what the song is about.
and then you wonder…suddenly all at once and slowly dawning on you, both…what else didn’t i get?
revved up like a deuce??? a 1932 ford. oh. of course!
“all you need is love, love. love is all you need.” (all you need is love lyrics – john lennon, paul mccartney. recorded by the beatles. 1967)
“c’mon people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now.” (get together lyrics – chet powers. recorded by the youngbloods. 1967)
right now? when?
“there comes a time, when we heed a certain call; when the world must come together as one…” (we are the world lyrics – michael jackson, lionel richie. recorded by multiple artists. 1985)
when?
“all my life I’ve been waiting for; i’ve been praying for, for the people to say that we don’t wanna fight no more; they’ll be no more wars. and our children will play.” (one day lyrics – bruno mars, ari levine, matthew miller, philip lawrence . recorded by matisyahu. 2008)
when? when is that time?
“blackpaint is a woman-owned art advocacy agency [in milwaukee, wisconsin] that designs public art and awareness campaigns for organizations and causes [they] believe in” and is responsible for the creation of this mural, painted by two women, celebrating differences.
sometimes lyrics and murals don’t need further talk-talk. it would be easy to list song lyrics about diversity that span time. it would be easy to post photographs of paintings or graphic designs about diversity that span time.
the common element would be their messages of respect, of equality, of love, of unity.
“…adopt the pace of Nature. Her secret is patience.” (ralph waldo emerson)
no matter how hard we try, there is not one thing we can do to make the sun appear or the day warmer or the moon to rise or the snow to fall. we accept that time will come, time will pass, time will form and time will destroy. we give over to nature, anticipating that which we know, expecting the unexpected. we baby-step through this very time in the universe, our footprints barely visible on the timeline that is forever. we learn that no matter our stride, we are simply tiny beings. eventually, we learn, after giving over to patience, that that is enough.
the john denver sanctuary in aspen is a treasure trove. we have been there three times now. a garden of trails and large river boulders etched with lyrics and quotes, perennial daisies and aspen trees, it is a gentle sinking into peaceful. the city sounds of aspen fall away and the river and streams are lulling.
we wandered for hours, reading, sitting, pondering, the sun on our faces, the sound of quaking leaves slowing us down. i stood on a giant rock, like a stage under my feet, and bowed deeply to no one and to the brilliance of a man who knew how to tenderly shape melody and weave lyric into a fabric like a soft blanket.
we were immersed in poetry, in words, delicious to read aloud. we were quietly taking it all in, i in all my john-denver-glory, reliving the cassettes i wore out, rewinding, rewinding, listening again and again. this exquisite place, tempting all-day-hooky-playing, wielding a magic defined by thought, encouraging reflection, softly begging you to tumble in your own thoughts. this place slowing you down, reminding you that it is not stuff that defines you, it is not the stuff-of-you that will remain with others.
we wrestle with timing, with suspense, with expectation and disappointment. we measure against ladders of success and hold ourselves to higher higher higher standards of accomplishment.
nature quietly treks on, luminescent and glorious, patiently acknowledging every babystep moment of its impact, surrendering judgement and secretly, from the heart of the universe, signing its autograph on all of us, whispering to us to slow our pace.
“look it up,” my sweet momma would say. i blame her. for my word-curiosity. for my policing of spelling, punctuation, grammar. for my love of dictionaries and my commitment to learning. at 93 she was still asking questions, being curious, looking it up.
black and white composition books, of both thick and thin variety, populated my growing up, my teenage years, my college years, and ever since. though i do have a thready fondness of using My Girl’s and My Boy’s old unfinished spiral notebooks these days, we have piles of waiting-to-be-used composition books and they beckon when i open the supply cabinet in the sunlit office upstairs. places to jot poetry, thoughts, reflections, stories, lyrics, these composition books always make me think of my mom. they are places to process, to remember, to dream, to sort. they are the beginnings of stories, lyrics to ponder, the coda to the song. to someone else they are simply words on the page. to me, it is my breath that gives them life. we each have stories to tell, songs to write.
in the last few days i have had the frustration of feeling silenced. as i wrote in yesterday’s post, someone marked all five of my blogposts of last week on facebook as “spam” and that somehow triggered facebook to pull every last one of my blogposts – and any mention of my blogsite – down. every word – the simple ones, the ones that require looking-it-up – pulled down. with 650 posts, even averaging 500 words, that is 325,000 words. MY 325,000 words. gone.
in these times of chaos and unrest and pandemic, there are plenty of words out there. foul words, words of peaceful mantras, words of untruth, twisted words of conspiracy theories, imploring words, scientific words, words of wisdom from giants of wisdom, accessible words, words we have to look up, words we can hardly believe we’ve heard from various people-in-the-spotlight, words at which we roll our eyes, words we find reassuring.
in a daily email he receives, david shares a new word with me. “kawaii,” he reports, “means cute.”
the baby raccoons, most definitely kawaii, peeked out from behind the tree trunk. upon seeing us on the trail, they had scrambled from the little pond up the tree. they stared at us; we stared at them. they didn’t move, quizzically grasping onto bark and watching quietly. we didn’t move either. we just stood quietly on the trail and watched. the story they would tell about our encounter wouldn’t have many words. all was silent. all was motionless. they were safe; we were safe. for a few minutes, we shared the serene woods together, a little eye contact in hushed regard of each other. maybe, in their re-telling, in their speckled composition book, they would just tell the coda – “and then they left.”
every now and again i take out an old composition book. it’s astounding. i was so…..wordy.
during this time that FB, impossible to contact, figures out i am not ill-intended nor do i post SPAM, i would ask you a favor: if you have found any post of mine to be thought-provoking or encouraging or reassuring in some way and have enjoyed reading, please “follow” this blog. you can “follow” it on this post or later go to our website www.kerrianddavid.com/the-melange to find the link to this blogsite. wordpress will send you an email each day with my 5 day-a-week blog. you can certainly choose to read or not read each day and, at any time, you can choose to “unfollow” the blog. just as it is your decision whether or not to read my post on facebook each day, i would like to think you still have the option. subscribing gives you that. hopefully, FB will allow and restore my written work soon.
“i believe the children are our future. teach them well and let them lead the way…”
“i believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows…”
“i believe in music. i believe in love.”
“believe in the magic that can set you free….”
“i believe when i fall in love with you…”
“believe it or not i’m walking on air…”
“i believe i can fly…”
“i believe in love, i do…”
“believe me, oh, believe me…”
“believe it or not i’ve been waiting for you to come through…”
“i want to believe in my fellow man. yes, i want to believe…”
“oh, everyone believes…”
“you know i believe and how…”
“i believe in you and me…”
“oh i believe in you…”
“i’m a believer…”
“don’t stop believing…”
all lyrics. just a mere short-list. lots of believing. there must be something to it. a natural tendency, a listing in that direction. always hope. always belief. we fall and we get up. we fail and we try again. we hurt and we heal. we keep on keeping on.
because humanity is full of belief. in basic tenets of goodness, regardless of how you profess divinity. belief. the silken gossamer threads of breath. the accumulation of knowledge and emotion, question and certainty, analysis and intuition, feeling, communicating, learning. the struggle to stay centered. and believe.
there was not room on island for my piano, sheets of blank score paper, baskets of notebooks of lyrics, melody smidges, chord progression fragments. they waited at home for my return.
consumed by many tasks and layers of work since we arrived back home, we are surrounded by boxes and bins still unpacked. there is much to do. we have many other things tugging at us and these packed boxes, although frustratingly in the way, have sunk to a lower rung on the list of things-to-do.
i have been in and out of my studio, grabbing music as i need it, playing through a piece here and there, reviewing music for work. i have added a few notes to notebooks, to my calendar, a line of lyric here and there to remember on scraps i hope not to lose.
the other day i pulled out cds, finding a few with pieces that didn’t get tracked. rough cuts of piano for under lyrics, rough cuts of piano instrumentals. every artist has them…the cuts that didn’t get finished, the cuts that didn’t make it to the album. scraps of paper, notebooks of ideas, rough cuts of beginnings. they all eventually lead somewhere. no idea, no melodic gesture, no lyric stands alone.
and so, my really beautiful big resounding piano waits for me as i am quiet. pencils i’ve saved from The Boy’s and The Girl’s pencilboxes sit atop, next to blank score paper, notebooks and pa pads. they all wait. the muse waits. the music waits.
my sister sent me this. i don’t know who to credit, but it’s brilliant.
a year ago yesterday i wrote about an anniversary….it was 19 years since i released my first album. well, that makes this year’s yesterday 20 years since the release concert for that first album! i looked at someone last night and said, “two decades!” which makes it sound like forever ago. in some ways, it is.
fifteen albums and several singles after that first release i sit here at my piano and get lost in thought. thoughts of what next? thoughts of direction – looking back and looking forward. thoughts of relevance. (yes, i have used that before in writing. but it’s so…relevant.)
at 56 i am a different composer, a different performer, a different dreamer than at 36. it doesn’t seem as important to fill any concert venue in order to have impact, in order to resonate with someone in his/her life. i wonder where the next two decades will take me. sheesh, where will the next one decade take me?
i face different challenges now than i did at 36. i’m not writing in interrupted bursts at the piano, in-between toddlers’ requests or needs. i have more uninterrupted time to sit and compose, to write lyrics. hmm…i find that i’m actually better when being interrupted.
my songs are different too. lyrics at 36 were designed for airplay – 3.5 minutes or less. more than that was the kiss of radio-death. lyrics at 56 aren’t designed. in fact, i’m wondering who will listen. how many other pianoplayingsingersongwritercomposers are out there?
i was listening to pop radio while driving the other day and was floored at all the lyrics i would never have written. the lyrics “i’m all about that bass, ’bout that bass, no treble” would never occur to me. so i’m guessing (newsflash!) i’m not cut out for this pop radio thing any more. that’s a no-duh, you’re thinking. and yet, i know that people are still listening. i get feedback (jay’s word:) from people who generously take the time to sit down and jot a note to me about how something i have written touches them. this is huge. this is what makes writers keep writing, composers keep composing…the idea that something they have to say resonates with someone else. although the muse forces us all to continue regardless.
so….where am i going? i’m thinking about recording a new vocal album that is ukulele-based. not because i am a good ukulele player, but because i am not a good ukulele player. it will force me to really think about the lyrics, the melody, the stuff of emotion. i won’t be able to rely on those familiar and beloved 88 keys. it would make me change; it would make me grow. both are good.
i’d like to find a way for all the music that i’ve already recorded to be accessed more…in a fiscally rewarding way. the 319,954 downloads in the first quarter (see post from September 22) didn’t actually help me make a living. and that same thing happens each quarter that goes by. i’d like to think that everything that has been invested in all those albums – all those pieces of music – all that heart – might be able to help me pay my bills. $0.00079 royalty per download isn’t really the way to get there. and all the radio promoters and marketers i’ve paid in the past didn’t need the income from my music to pay their electric bill. they needed the income i paid them. big difference. but genuine iTunes downloads or licensing for movie scores or some wildly lucky viral hit would help.
in the meanwhile, i have to decide to decide. that it doesn’t matter, ahead of time, to know who will listen or what will happen. that if music is to be written, it just must be written. i have no real control over the rest.
reverse threading 