Sore back today, most likely the result of overdoing it in Zumba class yesterday; it's pretty high-impact and I was really going for it. Today, not so much. But do I complain? No I do not. Who would complain about too much dancing at age 57? (he asked rhetorically). I did make it to my morning dance class and could feel the fatigue, but I used it as a nice warm up, didn't push much at all, and all will be well. This would, however, be a great day for a hot tub and a massage, and though I could arrange the former, I'm too cheap for the latter. Note to self, if my next girlfriend is into massage, that would be great. Second note to self, next time I go to Thailand, take advantage of the wonderful and cheap massages which are available. It's one of my only regrets about the last trip.
Kinda liking my life this week, even though my work is very sporadic (read 'next to nothing') which is often a recipe for self-recrimination and bad feeling. Perhaps my new found mantra of 'less judgment and loathing, more gratitude and joy' is working? And yes, I managed to write that mantra without having to refer to a previous post. Maybe it's sinking in? Many people would be envious of being able to live as care-free (on the surface) a life as I seem to, but I'm guessing that they might find it challenging too. I'm reminded of a feature I saw about recently laid off financial workers who were just freaking out about not having a job to go to and lots of stuff on their plate. It was very threatening to be faced with a day in which the job didn't define them. By 11 in the morning they were beside themselves, and I found it quite interesting.
I'm working a lot on the piano these days, especially getting my left hand to play that bouncing ragtime feel that I've never done before. I have a piano gig coming up in a couple of weeks and am looking forward to sharing some of the new stuff I've been developing. I do play the piano at my old people gigs, but this one is different in that I'll be doing background music at the 'Slug Queen Ball' in the early part of the evening, so I'll get to set the mood as people arrive. I've got a nice version of 'When You Wish Upon a Star' going, and wow what a beautiful melody and lyric! I'm working on 'Birth of the Blues', 'Up a Lazy River' and one of my new ones which is called 'Song and Dance Man'. Yes it's autobiographical, the music is done and I have the lyric for the bridge.
And if your heart is breaking
The world's gone cold
And there's an aching in your soul
When all your dreams have fallen
Flat on the ground
You surely need someone
To turn it back around...
You need a song and dance man
Nobody does it like he can
Watch him whip up the grandstand
He's a song and dance man...
Here's the mini-analysis, and a window into the way my mind works when I'm composing. I like the first three lines of the bridge a lot because in line three I rhymed both lines one and two. I saw that trick in Dylan's song 'Mozambique' when he wrote:
I like to spend some time in Mozambique
The sunny sky is aqua blue
And all the couples dancing cheek to cheek
It's very nice to stay a week or two
When he writes 'week or two' that rhymes with both lines one and two and gives it a real nice feel. The sentiment in my song is totally different, but I happened upon the same little trick, not intentionally, but I recognized it when it occurred. Another little inside joke happens on the line 'turn it back around' because I threw in a nice jazzy 'turnaround' under those lyrics, a turnaround being a sequence of chords that leads you back to the beginning of the song. So there's a little double entendre between the music and the lyrics. I heard the same idea in the musical Wicked when the lead witch sang the line 'Breaking all the rules' as a big climactic moment in her song, and the composer threw in a very unusual 'rule breaking' interval for that line. I'm sure that I'm one of the only people who noticed it, but I thought it was a super compositional move. I love that kind of stuff.
I'll put in some more time later today on 'Song and Dance Man', both writing and playing. It's an uptempo jazzy thing a la 'Aint She Sweet' but it's got a 'feeling' section in the bridge... which gets turned around back into the swing. I want to capture a bit of the joie de vivre along with the slap-dash nature of making something out of nothing, which is kind of what a song and dance man can do. It's like that quote about me being a 'musical bricoleur'. This was written by a professor friend of mine who was describing my ability to just make it happen in the moment, with whatever is at hand. There's a bit of magic, a bit of recklessness, some trusting in the skills and the moment to just let it fly and see what happens. I guess I'm trying to capture that feeling in a song, and maybe there's a bit of that 'tears of a clown when there's no one around' that makes it into a verse, but I haven't figured that out yet. No, that doesn't feel quite right, but I do want to capture something of the razzamatazz, smoke and mirrors, there's no business like show business vibe as a counterpoint. So in other words, I'll have to put in some hard work and thought into capturing the 'in the moment' sensibility. And that is a little bit of irony that I'm happy to live with....
