None of this has a thing to do with this tune. I’d gotten the germ for it some years ago and put it aside, possibly because it started as a banjo tune and all banjo tunes are suspect. On banjo, it sounded aggressive and militaristic, though you might not intimidate the enemy if you sweep down upon them, banjos blaring. On the other hand, they might surrender without a fight if you promise you’ll stop playing. All that aside, I tried the tune on guitar and noticed, by cracky, it’s a waltz. I could have named it “Waltzing ~,” but the Copyright Office doesn’t allow special characters in song titles. It doesn’t even allow apostrophes or commas. Which is why the level of literacy in this country is deplorable.
I can’t remember where this tune came from. It must have been a wordless mood, though, because I haven’t anything to say about it. If it puts you in a similar mood, good. Nothing wrong with silence. A pool shark I met said, “My words mean I want you as a friend. My silence means you are.”
I have a black thumb. A friend once gave me a cactus, and I couldn’t keep it alive. The only time I’ve ever had success with growing something from seed was when I was in third or fourth grade. I sneaked a lima bean into the box where the class had planted some seeds and labeled all the compartments with what was supposed to sprout from them.
I’d been toying with belief in god back then, and I recall saying a little prayer when I planted the bean. All the other seeds grew at a modest pace. Mine seemed to have the ceiling in mind as its first milestone. Nobody knew what the hell it was, and I didn’t say a word. Whether I held my tongue because I hated my teacher or because I lean toward pure cussedness–as James Thurber might describe it–I just don’t know.
I wouldn’t know an alder if I chanced upon one. I figure if plants don’t like me, I’m not obligated to learn their names. But I like the word, and this tune could be the soundtrack when a few cowpersons are riding through a meadow lush with what I’d guess were cottonwoods but turned out to be alders, manzanitas, and stinkfoot.
St. Margaret’s Hope is a village on the Orkney Islands off the north shore of Scotland. About 550 people live there. If, in this simple melody, I’ve suggested 1/9787th of its charm, I’ve done well by the place.
You might be able to tango to this tune. I’ve never tried. That’s not only because I’d feel plain odd dancing to one of my own tunes; it’s also that the only thing I know about how to tango is that in doing it, all the while, you must appear focused, and in great pain. The pain seems, to an outsider, a noble sort. Noble too is the look the dancers adopt–one of disturbed, vulpine hunger. I can see why so many people think it fun.
I do, in fact, live a few miles from Dogtown. You can look it up; it’s just outside Bolinas. Dogtown is a lovely spot, honest. I just couldn’t resist enlisting its name for this tune. I don’t know anyone who lives there, but judging from the very few mentions of Dogtown among the Sheriff’s Calls listed weekly in our local paper, it appears the folks there are downright upright, too.
Going over my notes wouldn’t help, so I’m glad I don’t keep them. Perhaps I titled this tune sometime around Passover; perhaps it was just after a visit to a boutique-y food store–the kind that sells beautifully packaged products that promise an exotic experience, for a lot of money, and not much by way of product inside. Those things are sold not by volume, not by weight, but by design of package.
Just take it easy for two minutes and fifty-eight seconds, hard as that might be. We don’t need to invent abstract, theoretical paradoxes; everybody I know finds relaxing the most difficult thing in world to do. Nigh on impossible for some.
I found the lead guitar part for this tune on my recorder’s memory card. I didn’t remember having played it, but the date stamp said I’d recorded it a couple of days prior. This happens a lot. I keep forgetting to bring it up in therapy. Regardless of what anyone might think about the worthiness of the lead guitar part, you’ll have to admit it does seem as if I meant it, or something. Perplexed, but undaunted, I added rhythm and bass, gave it a name, and forgot it again. This time, for about a year.
If I had anything left to say, I’d write lyrics for this tune. But everyone’s treated everything from glee to sorrow exhaustively, and that leaves me with nothing to write about except how excited our chickens get about mealworms. Nevertheless, the lyrics to this tune would fall out on the sorrow side of the spectrum, but not way over that way.
Beethoven and I have little in common other than our perpetual stern, dour expression. Toward the end of his life, he couldn’t hear what he wrote, but he didn’t need to. Just looking at the notes on the page, he knew just how his compositions would sound. I’m usually surprised by how tunes come out, this one more than others. There are other differences between me and Beethoven, most notably: I’m a whole person, whereas–as Victor Borge pointed out–, Beethoven was only from the shoulders up.
A friend gave me a book titled They Have a Word For It, by Howard Rheingold. The author lists and expounds upon foreign words we might find useful since we haven’t a handy one in English, and we haven’t yet appropriated one from Yiddish, which has a word for everything if you mind your inflection. The Japanese use shibui to express the beauty of aging. To the Mayans, stupid in-laws are bol.
We need a word to describe what happens to your heart when you visit a neighborhood where you once lived–especially one from your childhood. It’s like walking into Extreme Emotions Emporium and saying, “I’ll have a dozen of each. In one bag.” A word like gblampfphlarggrl, maybe.
Some people can’t manage 1/897th part of it. You know who they are.
Consider this tune through-composed, a fancy composers’ term for “I didn’t know where the hell I was going with it.” I found the improvised lead for it on my digital notebook recorder pretty much as you hear it and added bass and a bit of commentary guitar. Only if there’s an afterlife in which some being of light explains everything to me will I find out why I named it what I named it. But if I had to guess, it might be because the truth, usually merely a bit player, has been written out of the script these days.
If you know someone who’s good at putting music into genres, lemme know. This tune fits nowhere I’ve ever been. That doesn’t bother me, but I have a hard time when people ask me, “What kind of music do you play?” People seem unsatisfied when I say, “Well . . . ,” and leave it at that. I can’t understand why.
An earnest tune. I don’t mind fits of earnestness.
Hither and Yon
Another in the “Hmmm, maybe I can get away with it” category. Browsing my list of snatches of melody ideas, I found this. At least the lead part. In a flurry of laziness, I added rhythm tracks to make it presentable. A liquid term: presentable. But I’m a fan of liquids. Wouldn’t drink anything else.
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It Is, Isn’t It?
Regard this tune as you might a sectional sofa. Or maybe just as sectional. But perhaps I overstep. What I mean is, you may think of regarding this tune as I suggest, but it’s merely a suggestion. I shouldn’t tell anyone how to regard anything. Seconality comes to mind, for me, because when I recorded it, I had trouble remembering which section came next. The progression might strike you as a logical. That might be why I couldn’t follow it.
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Leeway
Fortunately, this tune says what it needs to say. I hope it speaks to you. I trust it will speak kindly.
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Maybe
Since I haven’t anything to say about this tune, I’ll tell you about my favorite metaphor. Octavio Paz, writing about his mother, said she was a “carta de amor con faltas de lenguaje.” A love letter, with spelling mistakes.
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Moots
According to the Dictionary of American Regional English, folks in some parts of the country say “dust bunnies,” some say “moots.” This invaluable dictionary–and I mean that seriously–lists 174 variants for these little fluff balls, among them, frog hair, house moss, and cussywop. I vote for moots.
I’d like to say that this is all beside the point, but John Cage pointed out that “everything is to the point.”
So, onto a different point. I should re-record this piece, but I should also vacuum the house–moots are everywhere–, and you don’t see me edging toward the Hoover. It’s one of those tunes that, if you get the idea, that should hold you for a while.
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The Approach
The first time I encountered some pesky, tiny Mississippi flies that sounded like high speed dentist drills but that delivered a negligible bite, my friend Toni–bless her eternally–assured me, “It’s the approach, not the sting.” These words, you will quickly note, are apt in countless circumstances.
I wasn’t thinking of flies when I wrote this tune. Allegedly, when a reporter asked Yogi Berra what he thinks when he steps up to the plate, Yogi replied, “How can you think and hit at the same time?” Amen.
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Wear and Tear
When I was a kid, a local TV station aired a daily program called The Buddy Dean Show. It ran in the afternoons, when kids would be just home from school. Buddy played the Top 40, and “The Committee,” a gang of regular teens, danced.” That was the show.
When Buddy played a new song, he’d occasionally grab one of The Committee and ask, “Whadja think?” I never heard a comment, ever, ever, other than, “It’s got a good beat, and you can dance to it.” Same words every time. Granted, I watched very, very infrequently. But still, I concluded that The Committee read from cue cards, rather, a cue card.
I say this because otherwise, surely, one would have pointed out that “‘The Leader of the Pack’ is a poignant, trenchant indictment of America’s tacit caste system, which, by virtue of our deeming it unspeakable to speak of caste among polite company, is all the more damnable.” You’d have said that, too. In those very words. I’m sure.
This tune has a good beat, and you can dance to it.
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Ocho
There’s nothing eightish about this tune. I just like the word. It sounds like a new sheet of sandpaper. No doubt, the legions of academics who vehemently debate the meaning of my tune titles will find in them something underlying, something dark, something I should have brought up in therapy. And the authorities will bitterly differ. You’ll never go far as an academic if you aren’t an ace differer.
Back when I was teaching English, we’d have mandatorily meaningless department meetings in which we got to differ. I usually kept quiet so the meeting would end sooner. But I would have spoken, certainly, if I’d sat on our county’s curriculum writing team. The committee listed among the goals we were to aim for when we assigned some texts or tasks, the requirement that students derive meaning from them. Had I the chance, I’d have asked what they meant by meaning. Or maybe whether they thought it OK for our kids to derive no meaning from some of their work.
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Wheat
I suppose if you’re in a whooshy mood, you could picture wheat whooshing as you listen to this tune. But that’s not what I had in mind when I wrote it, or when I titled it. I might as well have been looking at a box of pasta when I titled it, but even that’s all the more unlikely since most pasta boxes have the word wheat somewhere on them. As for what I was thinking when I wrote it, don’t make me laugh.
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Alders
I have a black thumb. A friend once gave me a cactus, and I couldn’t keep it alive. The only time I’ve ever had success with growing something from seed was when I was in third or fourth grade. I sneaked a lima bean into the box where the class had planted some seeds and labeled all the compartments with what was supposed to sprout from them.
I’d been toying with belief in god back then, and I recall saying a little prayer when I planted the bean. All the other seeds grew at a modest pace. Mine seemed to have the ceiling in mind as its first milestone. Nobody knew what the hell it was, and I didn’t say a word. Whether I held my tongue because I hated my teacher or because I lean toward pure cussedness–as James Thurber might describe it–I just don’t know.
I wouldn’t know an alder if I chanced upon one. I figure if plants don’t like me, I’m not obligated to learn their names. But I like the word, and this tune could be the soundtrack when a few cowpersons are riding through a meadow lush with what I’d guess were cottonwoods but turned out to be alders, manzanitas, and stinkfoot.
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Brambles
I’m thinking of inventing a breakfast cereal and calling it Brambles. It would look like sticks and twigs. Kids would readily eat something that looks like sticks. I would have.
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Espero
In Spanish it means “I hope.” I’m an incurable wiseguy, but I do know when to keep quiet.
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Penny Candy
In my senior year in high school, I worked at an ice cream store. A single scoop cone was 15 cents. People complained when it went up to 17 cents. From this information, you can easily compute my age.
I long for those days not because they were great. People then were as crazy as ever before, though I would argue forcefully that we’ve made bold strides in becoming more so since. But I do miss going to the corner store with a nickel in my pocket, feeling rich.
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Scraping By
His mouth full of some unspecified species of fruit, Adam heard these words, probably in surround-sound: “Now y’all gotta eke. Spit that out and go eke, you–and her, too.” So, we’ve all eked ever since. Many of us, at least. Most, probably.
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Some Hope
This is the kind of tune that songwriters dream of writing–not that it’s undeniably fabulous or anything like that. Whether it’s good or not is up to you. But it was one that wrote itself, seemingly. I just got out of the way and let it tell me how it wanted to go. I’d dismiss the claim that some works of art are in some real sense inspired, except every artist of any kind I’ve ever encountered says that’s what happens sometimes. Some works are nothing but sweat; some are anything but. I once complimented a friend on a song, and he replied, “I’m not the one who wrote it. I’m just the one who wrote it down.”
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An improvisation that I took a shine to. It’s nasty, maybe not nasty enough for those with refined sensibilities; but let me tell you, nasty is in these days. I’m just trying to keep up.
I’m trying to learn to understand spoken and written Spanish. According to my friends, I’ll never speak it. When I try, they say, it sounds like Yiddish, with a Baltimore accent. Nonetheless, after reading a sentence in Spanish only forty or so times, I remember the gist.
But I love the sounds of Spanish. I love, in particular, the ones spelled with a double L, of which there are many. Most of them have to do with crying or tears. Or flames. Or crying about old flames. Or dousing old flames with tears.
Many words that are capitalized in English are not capitalized in Spanish. But all words having to do with emotion are tacitly capitalized in Spanish.
I miss alleys. When I was a kid, allies were my oases. Nobody else went there except trash collectors, and they were always glad to see you and manifestly good-hearted. These days, allies probably aren’t as safe. I feel I must echo Cat Stevens’ sage rhetorical question, “Where will the children play?”
This tune is what would have run through my head when I played in an alley, if I’d written it then. I was about 70 when I wrote it, but the mileau is still fresh in my memory. Listen closely; the tune might not sound like when you stick your head in a 20-gallon galvanized trash can to see if there’s anything good in there, but it feels like it.
If you don’t believe in god, fine. Nobody can prove you wrong. Or right.
But I warn you that if you don’t go in for god, you’ll be left wondering why you’ve just exclaimed “OMG!” when you get a good in-person look at the American Redstart. Redstarts are bitty birds, warblers they’re called. The male, as is true for most birds, is the jazzier gender, color-wise; but the female, trust me, has her charms, and looks is among them. You can find pictures of them, but if a picture is worth a thousand words, the real thing is worth more than a thousand pictures. Redstarts are breathtakingly beautiful, heart-meltingly sweet, and fully deserving of unconditional love, despite their diet– if insects give you the willies–, or because of it.
A quizzical tune, maybe. If it’s not quizzical to you, fine. I’ve just always wanted to use the word in a sentence. And you must admit, quizzical is at least not an SAT word, like plethora, the use of which–past one’s sophomore year in college–should be punishable by $2,500 and 30 days.
I toyed with the idea of calling this “Music to Rustle Cows By.” Or “Soundtrack for a Wanted Dead or Alive Poster.” But those might have suggested images, and I’d rather let “Five Figures”–open-ended, yet within grasp–bring up what it might. If it brings up nothing, remember: that is a state of mind highly sought-after. It’s one step higher than the Holy Grail; it’s the empty Holy Grail.
I’d always wanted to be a low-down, mean, nasty, no-count sumbitch. Like everyone, I assumed you can’t play the blues unless you’re a sumbitch. But the new book titled Brother Robert, written by Robert Johnson’s ninety-three year-old half-sister shoots holes in that idea. Turns out the man everyone had taken for a fiend from Hell was powdered sugar. Another myth busted.
This tune isn’t the blues. I wouldn’t know what to call it. But it does sound as if it’s trying to live up to the old standard by being un-cooperative.
I’m still mad at my seventh grade geography teacher. He pronounced the word taiga as tie-egg-uh. So, until I recently saw a National Geographic program about some denizens of the taiga, I’d pronounced it incorrectly. My teacher couldn’t blame it on his Baltimore accent. People in Baltimore don’t use the word, in my experience. Nobody in my synagogue ever did. Nobody in my neighborhood ever did. None of my relatives did. Baltimoreans can be held to account for lossingers instead of lozenges, blair road rather than “Belair Road,” lumberd street instead of Lombard Street, and for spelling a word that they pronounce as Utah “Eutaw”; but having no need to say taiga, they couldn’t have mangled it. No, this was a one-man hit job on a pretty word, if you think about it.
All that aside, the space in this tune reminded me that I’ll pronounce the word wrong if I’m not vigilant. Another student scarred for life by a treacherous teacher.
I can’t remember where this tune came from. It must have been a wordless mood, though, because I haven’t anything to say about it. If it puts you in a similar mood, good. Nothing wrong with silence. A pool shark I met said, “My words mean I want you as a friend. My silence means you are.”
This tune gives you time to think, so I apologize if you’re not keen on thinking. One of my friends says she hates thinking. It makes her cranky.
If you’re charmed by the title of this tune, I apologize. The piece is as charming as a dried salami, so I hope I didn’t mislead you; I hope you weren’t looking forward to something more elevated. I dedicate it to anyone who is suspicious or who has ever been suspicious.
It’s far more becoming to be mad about something rather than mad about someone. The former takes greater self-control; it speaks well of your maturity. Apparently, I was mad about something when I wrote this. So I acted responsibly. I didn’t take the easy way out. I didn’t go fall in love with someone. I beat up my guitar.
I like this tune because it’s unlike me. Make of that what you will, and let me know if you come up with something. I don’t know what to make of it. A7, incidentally, is the name of a chord, in music. This tune is in the key of A7, which is not allowed.
I’m trying to learn to speak Spanish. The language is just lovely to hear, and I count myself lucky to get to hear it a good bit. I doubt I’ll ever become fluent, mainly because I’m hardly fluent in my native language these days. I’m forgetting the names of everyday objects at about the same brisk rate that I forget people’s names. Oddly enough, whenever I try to remember a word in Spanish, the French word for it comes to mind instead. I took French in middle school, and even then, I couldn’t remember French words for the test. Funny they should pop up now.
Lluvia is just one of the many Spanish words for rain. Many start with two L’s, so they’re easy to confuse with all the other words for rain, which are easy to confuse with the many Spanish double L words that don’t mean rain. If this tune doesn’t remind you of rain, don’t think less of yourself. it didn’t remind me of it either. With any luck, it will remind you of a particular kiss. We can all point to a particular kiss. At least, I hope so.
This tune showed up in a basket on my doorstep. I am just horrible when it comes to anything smacking of organization, and computers not only don’t help, they add enormously to my confusion. I forget what I was looking for when I discovered it on an old hard drive; so unless I can remember what I was after in the first place, which is doubtful, I’ll never find it. Nonetheless, I did find this, which I suppose I wrote and recorded.
At least, I do recognize the sound of the guitar. It’s a Kalamazoo that was made in about 1937. The Kalamazoo brand was Gibson’s blue-collar line, but some of the old, budget-priced instruments you might find sound a good bit better than the Cadillacs by the same company. Sometimes I think it was no accident that some manufacturers cranked out great economy-line instruments. They might have figured that plenty of fine guitarists couldn’t afford their more expensive brand-name models, and great players deserve great guitars, no matter their means. Of course, I doubt there’s any evidence to support this theory, but I like it too much to do any research on it. You have to admit, it’s a generous thought; and sad to say, all too often I’m not inclined to think generous thoughts about humankind. Present company excluded, of course.
I felt free to name this tune as I did because I’m sure it does not begin to reflect the insidious, malevolent, unholy connotations of what we now call “dark money.” I don’t see how anything can. So, think of the title as poetic in this case. You have to admit, the term is very noir. It wears a trench coat.
Luckily, I live in a place where lots of people speak Spanish, and Spanish is a most musical language. I’m learning Spanish, best I can, which might never be so great. But maybe I’ll at least be able to talk to some ninos around here.
As far as the title of this song goes–how it fits with the melody or something–eh. It probably doesn’t. It probably fits as well as calling it something unfitting in English, like “Great Northern Beans.”
This is a quiet tune for a quiet time. Someday, I’d like to put some words to it. Meanwhile, I offer it as-is in hopes you find a quiet time. Not many of those left, I’ve noticed. You might have to make one.
If you visit the Big Island, do obey the signs at the top of the road to the Waipi’o Valley: it’s four-wheel drive or die. And as evidence, they add that you’ll see at the bottom all the busted, crushted, rusted, twisted hunks of metal that were once cars without four-wheel drive. In only 6/10ths of a mile, up or down, you’ll go 800 vertical feet; 25% is the average grade. Some parts are steeper. The walk down is perilous. If your foot hits a few loose pebbles, you’re on your patootie. The walk back up is a day’s work.
But, it’s worth it.
There’s something bacterial about this tune. It grew on me. At first, I thought it bothersome. I was right. It bothered me until I recorded it. It’s not troubled me since then.
This was a ’50s-flavored idea when I began writing it. Not intentionally. Tunes occur to me without my consent. But these are not the ’50s, and as anyone who’s read something other than a state-approved history book will tell you, the ’50s weren’t either. So I didn’t feel constrained to keep it sounding like someone rolling a Hula Hoop down a hill. It now sounds more like someone trying to get out of Chinese Handcuffs: vexed, but trying to have a good time.
When I was a kid, folks flying into Baltimore landed at Friendship Airport. It was an apt name, for I remember Baltimore as a big town with a small town feel. Once, outside Memorial Stadium, an impoverished appearing man approached me. I thought he might ask for something, but he wanted to give me something. He offered me his hand and said, “I’m your best friend.” I looked him in the eye and assured him I knew that was true. People with an expertise I don’t dare challenge changed the name of the city’s airport from Friendship to Baltimore/Washington International. Am I the only person who in fact wants to cry about this?
Anyone who’s ever played baseball or softball can tell you that, in the true spirit of good sportsmanship and good sportswomanship, whenever batters for the opposing team step up to the plate, everyone in the field uses one of many filthy tactics designed to distract them. Nothing’s off limits. The most common, and perhaps the oldest, is yelling, “Hey, batter, batter!” just as the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand. Linguists have translated dialogue bubbles from cave paintings on every continent, and this very phrase appears, word-for-word, in every one. Strikingly, dialogue bubbles are found in no other ancient cave art–not in the hunting scenes, not in the Bar Mitzvah ritual depictions.
Etymologists, I’m sure, have traced this word back to the original Coptic or something and can give you a perfectly reasonable reason for spelling gnats with that silent g up front. My own feeling about it is that it’s there to make foreigners roll their eyes and mutter about how so irritable a language has become, worldwide, as necessary as socks.
My friends will tell you I’m as crusty and uncooperative as this tune sounds. And those are my friends.
My good friend Mary Pat urged me never to apologize for a performance or something like it. But she never heard this recording. I tried playing it like a jig, which it is, at heart, but it resisted. Mind you, it resisted; I’m a bystander.
I’m convinced that someone can play it so it doesn’t sound a good bit darker than a jig. Anyone who pays attention to titles would think I’d not intended it to sound so haunted. As it stands, this recording would go well as the first played at a wake, when everyone was still sober and mindful of the reason for the gathering. I did entertain the idea of calling it “Skip to the Funeral,” but I thought that in bad taste. “Jiggle the Handle” is dignified and mature.
I could say about this tune what someone connected with Costco’s wine selection said about the 2010 Pauillac from Chateau Haut Bages: “Dark in profile and rather stolid, with a beam of currant, plum and fig allied to a prominent iron shaft that clamps down on the charcoal-textured finish,” and who might argue?
Maybe someday I’ll write lyrics to this tune. If I do, I’m not sure they’ll be about god, per se. I’m with those who say, “Shut up about god,” and I wish we didn’t have to say even that.
Some musicologists claim that Bach included every species of dissonance in at least one of his pieces. Perhaps to underscore this point, Alban Berg, a twelve-tone composer–and twelve-tone is starkly dissonant to anyone who’s not used to a Bulgarian women’s choir–, incorporated a section of a Bach cantata note-for-note in his famous violin concerto. If you didn’t know that Berg was quoting, not paraphrasing or summarizing or riffing on Bach, you’d never notice.
So if that one little dissonance in this piece bothers you, keep in mind that Bach might have been bothered by it as well. He knew what he was doing when he used dissonance. I don’t. I was just in the mood to bother people. I get that way. Ask anyone.
I wanted this tune to sound like what you’d hear when all’s said and done.
I’m terrible about naming my tunes, I admit, but I have not resorted to haphazard apostrophes, yet. No, the I’iwi is a brilliant bird of Hawaii, a magnificent scarlet creature with a lilting, flute-like voice and an enormous schnoz. We saw and heard mess of them, and those we saw and heard can now say they saw and heard us. I think we got the better of that deal.
I could have named this tune “On a Borrowed Guitar,” and you can call it that if you’d like. The car rental joint we used on Maui was housed in a horribly neglected garage; but I saw among the piles of dust-covered, oil-soaked junk strewn and piled about, a guitar case. “Who plays?” I asked the nice lady. “Nobody. We got it for free when we bought one of our cars.” “Can I borrow it?” “Sure. Nobody’s ever touched it.” So, I had a remarkably cheap guitar to horse around on for a couple of weeks. This tune arose from it.
Whoever built the rowhouse in which I grew up divided the basement into two rooms. The front room was much like a dungeon. But it was lighted well enough for me to play happily in it without fear anyone would clean it, ever. The back room was, in fact, a dungeon. The dark compartments within–the bowels of the house–rumbled on the dirt floor and echoed off the cement walls. One bare bulb hung from the exposed first-floor joists above, and I was dead sure someone, or something, lived behind the furnace. I looked, a few times, but finding nothing didn’t help me past my fears. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I thought. “Whatever lives there can sense when someone is coming.”
That said, this tune is a little like a rag, but probably not enough.
“Spanish is a loving tongue, soft as music, light as rain.
Was a girl I learned it from living down Sonora way.”
So begins the achingly beautiful cowboy song by Charles Badger Clark, Jr. The rhythms and music of the language have always felt like a kiss to me, too. Luckily, I get to hear a lot of it these days. I took the title for this tune from a well-known street in San Francisco. I pray it doesn’t mind.
I’m sure that my family’s policy–the one that goes, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”– was particular to my family and to none other, anywhere, ever. No one I’ve met or heard of seems to have any familiarity with it, and when I casually bring it up, everyone finds it quaint and hilarious.
This has nothing to do with this tune. Truth is, I have nothing to say about it; even saying that is overstatement.
I settled on the title for this tune by surrendering before I began trying to think of one. I just reached for the least disagreeable or confrontational word I could come up with first. My solution, now that I think about it–I hadn’t until now–, has great virtue. Even if it’s not a good title, it does establish that I am a team player. The title is a question, and no doubt, you feel included; you feel as if I’m urging you to give me your input and I welcome your thoughts. You feel as if I value your feedback highly but not nearly as highly as I value you as a person. You as a person rather than you as a llama.
For the record, Richard Feynman, the nuclear the physicist, played bongos. Very well, I hear. He also loved to pick locks.
I played this on a Kalamazoo KG1 guitar that was made in about 1937. As always, I have no idea why I named the tune what I named it. A psychiatrist might venture some guesses, and so might a five-year-old. The five-year-old is far more likely to be right, and right about there not being anything I should bring up about it in our next session. It’s funny about kids. A fourth-grade girl, who doesn’t know much English, just last week said to me, “You’re nice.” I had no trouble believing she meant it, no strings. And if anyone has ever made me think, “Y’know, she might have something there,” it’s her. Thanks, Brisa. I’m going to think seriously about what you said, I’m going to try to live up to it, and you can trust I was equally sincere when I replied, “Y tu tambien.”
My memory gets worse and worse. I was happy about something, apparently, when I wrote this tune. If so, I forget what about.
I played this tune on a guitar made in 1957. It’s a lovely old buddy that has somehow escaped even the tiniest injury, though I used to play it in lots of smoky, rough saloons. We should all go through life as unblemished as this guitar. I’ve watched over it, best I can, but I must allow that a few unseen agents might be brooding over it along with me. That sounds unscientific, I know. If challenged, my scientific answer would be, “So?”
This is a drinking song. I say that only because we watched To Have and Have Not last night, and it impressed me that drinking and smoking make you clever and desirable if you’re Lauren Bacall. Walter Brennan wasn’t desirable because he didn’t smoke. He wasn’t clever either, probably because you need to do both or you don’t get either.
I must have looked this word up after I absently, and not at all seriously, made it the working title for this tune. Maybe it has to do with botany, or dentistry. I don’t remember. I just never got around to changing it to something more fitting. I probably will, but probably not.
This recording is what I’d call a scratch take. I’ll probably re-record it, but probably not.
Look for a YouBoob called “Wet Biscuit McGlee.” Call me when you stop laughing.
Purists might carp about the tempo of this supposed “jig.” It’s a good bit slower than a regulation Irish jig. I offer, in defense, that I’m not Irish. I am ish, but I was born with a bagel in my mouth, not a tinwhistle. I can’t play any faster than this, so extrapolate. Or carp. Carping’s far easier, and far more fun.
A friend once mentioned that some of my tunes are sparse. I took it as a compliment, mainly because he was a lot bigger and stronger than I am, and also because he was holding an upright bass at the time. I know those are expensive, and I didn’t want to give him reason to swing it at me. I’d have felt awful.
If the sound of this recording evokes the image of a few highly adolescent boys, who, having smoked a few joints, have repaired to the garage to make music that sounds great to them at the moment but which will reveal its plainly amateurish qualities when they come down, I wouldn’t be surprised. Or insulted. That’s exactly the impression I’d hoped for when I recorded this piece. Believe me. Believe me. I’ll say it once more so you’ll have no doubt about my honesty: believe me.
This was supposed to be a “proof of concept” recording–a scratch take just to hear how it all didn’t fit together. I took the lead part straight from my little “idea” recorder–hence, the foot tapping–and added the other parts later. It’s far from an ideal recording, but it does convey what I was after. Call it a demo, or a place holder until I get around to doing it up right. Think of it as further proof that a touch of imperfection serves to remind us that the world is pretty good otherwise. Nigh on perfect.
Never doubt that I did not settle on the title of this tune because I wrote it on May 31st. Maybe some songwriters would have named a tune written on May 31st May 31st, but I don’t recall the month I wrote it, let alone the day. I think I can narrow down the year to within a couple of decades.
If I had any reason to call it May 31st, and I bet I didn’t, that was the day I found it in the stash of ideas I keep as reminders of what to neglect working on and decided, against my better judgement, to tidy it up. I can hear myself thinking, “Let’s see. Work on a tune, or vacuum the living room.” No contest, when you put it that way.
Have you ever felt, as I do at the moment, that you have–in the same moment–too much to say about something and nothing at all to say about the same thing? There might be a word in Icelandic for this sensation. In New Guinea, “mokita” means “the truth that everyone knows, but that no one speaks.”
I wrote this tune during my blue period, which began before my birth, according to some augurers I’ve met, and which I’ve maintained doggedly. I suspect everyone is always in a blue period as well. Admit it. Can you cite a moment in your life during which you didn’t really want to just hug your dog and say to hell with everything else?
Movie music. This is the tune you hear when the guy is driving past a field, which is to his left. He sees a cow, but he doesn’t think about the cow or about anything that’s happening or that’s happened or is going to happen. The cow, though, is deep in thought and chews accordingly.
This tune shouldn’t bother you, I don’t think. I wasn’t out to bother anyone when I wrote it. I didn’t have anything in mind when I wrote it, in fact. If I had to say why I write instrumentals, I’d probably offer that it’s to avoid thinking about some of the profoundly inane things I do think about. Some people are deep. I’m more what you’d call spread out.
I recorded the lead part for this tune on the handy little digital recorder I use to jot down melodies I think I might someday polish up and record. But I never intended to do anything with this one. I was just goofing around, and either I’d left the recorder on accidentally or turned it on to remind myself to remain very, very humble because some of my ideas are frankly odd, bad, or more often, both. But when I found it later, I realized I’d played the lead part well enough and that all I had to do to have a completed recording on the cheap was to add the rhythm tracks. So, here’s a good example of what abject laziness can get you, if you really work at it.
If you’ve been to Zanzibar, please let me know whether this tune–as I hope it does–elicits powerful, unmistakable memories of the place. If so, well that’s a coincidence. I don’t even know Zanzibar’s chief exports, and as any 7th grade social studies teacher will tell you, if you can’t list the chief exports of a country, you don’t know jack about it. I do remember from Mrs. Smith’s class that jute figured high in someone’s economy, as did indigo and sorghum in others. But I don’t remember which.
On balance, I’d say this tune is good-natured. I think I know why. My dear, dear friend, Hank Nigrine, might have been the kindest person ever to visit our planet, and he gave me a little book I’ve read a few times; I pick it up often. I read a few quotes from it at Hank’s funeral, and afterwards, a good number of his friends and relatives told me he’d also given a copy to them. The Portable Curmudgeon, compiled by Jon Winokur, contains hundreds of the most deliciously vicious quotes about humans you’ll ever have the pleasure to consider–Twain, Ambrose Bierce . . . all the great cynics are in there. Hank was saintly because he was willing to caress the part of him–the part of us all–that was justifiably wicked. It doesn’t do to pretend there aren’t deluxe-model schmoes among us. The truth sets us free, so we are obligated to have at it, for our own peace of mind. It makes room for the better parts of our nature. I must have written this tune shortly after I’d cussed somebody out but good.
It says right here that a gavotte is a dance from France, not a particularly fast one, and that gavottes were the rage in the 18th century. I sorta knew that, but not intimately. I named this tune because I’d seen that word on a lot of CDs, and I kinda liked the little feller. If you do know something about music, don’t look for any similarity between the tune and the name. None intended.
If you read what I wrote just above, about “Nepal,” you might suspect that, having arbitrarily–and perhaps inappropriately–named a tune for a place about which I know little, I gave this one a grand, but generic title to avoid having to defend myself at an embassy or something. That is a neat explanation, one that Freud himself would stroke his beard about, one that any true friend would implore me to bring up in therapy, one that a PhD. candidate would consider seriously for a thesis. But like everything that seems to make sense, we should make little of it. I named this tune “Place Names” for the same reason the French consider an anvil female.
This tune feels OK about itself for the most part. It does experience some self-doubt midway through, but it seems to recover of its own with no lingering effects. If only it were so easy, yes? Still, I’d like to know what was troubling it.
If this tune suggests kites for you, great. It didn’t for me, and as always, I’m at a loss for why I called it anything to do with kites, let alone “The New Kite.” But, while I’ve got you, I suggest strongly that you find a copy of Truman Capote’s short story “A Christmas Memory,” grab someone you love, and take turns reading it aloud to each other, preferably by an active fireplace or wood stove. The story captivated my high school classes, every time, and anything that doesn’t elicit violent eye-rolling among adolescents deserves, at very least, a shrine.
For those who don’t have my excellent command of middle school French, les etoiles are stars. True, it often takes the French many more letters and syllables to say something Americans say in one crude burp; and true, you have to put parts of your vocal production equipment in funny postions just to say “une,” which means “a.” But French is the language of love, and love does require all kinds of funny positions, so it’s apt.
And French does come in handy. A good twenty years after my last French class, in a genuine emergency–the details of which would take far too long to explain–, I once had to exclaim, in French, “The record player is broken!” This line issued from my mouth instantly and fluidly. My pronunciation, I learned later, was pretty good, too. No one was more astonished than I when these words rode to the rescue like the cavalry, bugles and brass buttons gleaming in the sun.
“Le pickup ne marche pas” was a line I’d had to memorize as part of one of those pesky dialogues. I’d had twenty years to assume I’d forgotten it, but I found that the thing had been biding it’s time somewhere in my amygdala or something, and it seems to have been crouching.
I used to tell that story to my English students when they asked the earnest question, “What the hell do we have to learn this crap for?” I didn’t fail to note for their benefit that the person to whom I’d said the line was very, very pretty. Nor did I skip that she suddenly regarded me very warmly after that. Nice pickup line. Try it sometime.
I saw Buddy Holly on the Ed Sullivan Show, way back when. And, like everyone else in the country, including nuns, I promptly repaired to my bedroom and, accompanying myself on badminton racket, strummed and sang “Peggy Sue” with a fervor to which I was unaccustomed. Originally, Moses certainly received more than ten commandments, as Mel Brooks documented indisputably, and one of the lost ones was “Thou shalt rock, regardless of native ability.” That imperative inspired this tune. Nobody said that divine inspiration always comes out as hot as heaven intends; you just make it as hot as you can, given your native abilities.
We are going to Petaluma to pick up three pullets–two Rhode Island Reds and one Speckled Sussex, probably. I know, I know: that’s hardly fitting as a liner note, and it’s too short. But I’ll say it would be of more interest to me than, say, pictures of the seaweed salad your server brought you last night. Even if his name was Jeremy, and even if he had some cool tattoos.
Maybe this tune is part of the series I mentioned in the notes for “Boats,” above. It’s been likened to an abstract painting. I didn’t ask whether the likener likes abstract art, so I don’t know if that was a compliment. You can understand my reluctance to pursue the matter.
The title comes from physics, which I like to read about until I get to an equation. When I see an equation, I want to heed Laurie Anderson’s advice, to “Let x=x . To which I’d add, “dammit.” But I like reading about the shenanigans that go on inside an atom. If you think your friends are wack, read about “spooky action at a distance.” Scientists, despite their rep, can be mighty poetic. They measure viscosity in poises per second. That evokes a powerful image in me: I can’t help but see myself as a child, sticking a broom handle into a heap of mud, sadly watching its slow decline toward the horizontal.
An old buddy told me the tune sounded like rain, to her. I threw in blue for color, but I might take that out. Plain rain might be better.
This tune is unlike me. It’s unlike me in that it’s delightfully creepy. And it has a few redeeming moments.
This tune is like me in that it would benefit from extensive reworking. I’d like to hear a jazz trio or quartet give it a try.
Humankind has never been more inventive than in our quest to call forth something to say when we’ve nothing to say. Think long and hard about that and see if you don’t agree. I won’t mind if you don’t agree. I didn’t think before I made the assertion. I made it because I had, and have, nothing to say–about this tune in particular–and usually in general as well.
I take that back. I just listened to it because, frankly, I’d forgotten it utterly, and I merely assumed I’d have nothing to say about it. But I can say I like the way this melody builds. It doesn’t build as Frank Zappa once said “just like the Supremes.” But it builds.
I’ve heard a wonderful story about radio. It might be true in the sense that it happened. But it’s true nevertheless. It goes like this: In the very early days of TV, someone–presumably an older person–asked a young boy which he liked better, watching television or listening to radio. The boy said he preferred radio. When the older person asked why, the boy replied, “Because the pictures are better.”
I know this is true because I taught a few high school courses in radio production. The idea to pitch the courses for approval to our county came to me when I played some audio pieces for my regular English classes. If I showed a film, my students’ heads were down within a few minutes. Nothing I could show them could compete with the exploding vehicles and unlikely flying creatures they were used to. But a single voice, no background music, no sound effects, would make them lean in as if to embrace the speaker.
By rights, then, no name at all would be better for tunes without words. But you have to tell them apart, to help people complain about them both individually and as a class. Giving them numbers would seem to make sense, but we know all about what numerologists would do then, and some of those folks–not all, of course–are wack jobs. So, it is with a measure of reluctance that I disturb whatever images this tune might otherwise evoke in you, if any, by giving it a title. Next to most other titles I’ve given my tunes, it’s a shining star.
I don’t recall where the inspiration for this tune came from, but I like to think it has something to do with voodoo. It’s certainly more romantic a notion than the ones neuroscientists have been coming up with. I’ve been reading that they’ve discovered where our spiritual center is located, and they can poke it and cause us to say oh wow, OMG. I guess sooner or later they’ll discover our composing lobe, and everyone will be a Mozart. And you think the Internet has a lot of music on it now.
Back when I taught high school, our county offered a half-day seminar called “Humor in the Classroom.” As far as I know, they offered it only once. About twenty-five teachers showed up for it, and to their credit, some did seem to be trying to smile as we chatted before class. The instructor handed out blue 3×5 index cards and asked us to note a topic that we thought might provide an opportunity to use humor. He collected the cards and read each one aloud.
No one laughed at them, but no one seemed openly hostile to any, either. People nodded, a little reluctantly, granting that an accomplished comic who approached the topic in just the right spirit might make something of it. They took each one seriously. But when he got to mine, his face darkened and his brow narrowed. I’d written “anything to do with poultry.” He read it aloud. The mood in the room, not light before then, turned grave.
For me, it was as if some clumsy angel had over-wound the great joy buzzer in the sky.
That evening, I noticed, rubber chicken futures were down.
Anyone good at losing things–pieces of physical matter–might understand how easy it is to lose something that isn’t even sporting enough to be material. I’d lost this tune for maybe a year when, in a heated argument with my computer, I stumbled upon it, as you hear it here. But, as Elizabeth Bishop reminds us, “The art of losing isn’t hard to master.” If you’ve not read that poem, put on a bib and look it up. I include that warning because the poem will at least reduce you to tears. It’s easily on par with some of Buddy Holly’s best songs.
I disagree with the Supreme Court: corporations are not people, and anyone who thinks so clearly isn’t one either. Books, though, are people. They find you, and you can’t say that about corporations unless you owe them money. The Art of Practicing, by Madeline Bruser yelled at me from our library’s shelf. I hadn’t been looking for anything like it, and I think I was just passing through the section where it lives on my way to find something else.
But it’s a lovely book by a most generous person. She teaches how to put practicing an instrument on a par, joy-wise, with eating chocolate: you do so immoderately. I was about halfway through the book when, with a few of her tips in mind, I picked up my guitar. Within ten or fifteen minutes I had this tune written, and by the end of the day, had it recorded. I should write to her, maybe send her the tune. She plays Beethoven and Chopin, so this would be right up her alley. And every bit as sophisticated.
An interesting idiom, “hold that thought.” If giving things human characteristics is personification, giving intangibles tangibility is what–palpification?
Thinking of thoughts as tangible might seem purely idiomatic to people who have never spent much time with very young children, or who have never watched the children they’ve spent time with. When very young children formulate sentences to describe or explain something they’ve never yet described or heard explained, watch closely. You can easily see them trying out combinations of words before they speak, and you can more easily see that the process, to them, is about the same as stacking blocks or testing pieces of a puzzle for a fit. Witnessing this is beautiful, beyond words.
This never hit home for me so acutely as when Nikki, four, asked me a particular question. I’d been kneeling, tying another child’s shoe, and Nikki approached me, silently, from behind. Without looking up, or around, I said, “Hi, Nikki.” She stood to face me and asked, “How did you know I was here?” I don’t believe in speaking to children as if they’re children, so I answered honestly; I said, “I could feel your presence.” She considered this for a brief moment, then asked, “You mean you could feel my eyes seeing you?”
“Exactly,” I said.
This tune is evidence of another of my amazing feats of memory. I forgot I’d written it. I stumbled upon it about a month later on a little recorder I use as a notebook. The lead is that original recording, complete with foot on hardwood floor. I just added some rhythm tracks. I concluded I was having paroxysms that day. All my friends tell me it’s far better than anything I’ve given any thought to, and they’re always right. Just ask them.
My dear friend Judy once said, “I hate thinking. It makes me cranky.” I might have replied, “Crankier, for me,” but I don’t remember. I suppose some poetic types might imagine this tune’s name comes from its airy silences, its spaciousness. I’d take credit if anyone ever complimented me on fitting the title to this tune, but frankly, this title, along with many others, resulted from the opposite of thinking. The airiness and spaciousness are nothing more than personal attributes, and we can’t take credit for them. Blame, yes. Credit, no.
I think the Ay-rabs are still a Baltimore institution. I wanted to name this tune for them, but few would understand the reference. Ay-rabs are not Arabs, and for the record, even if they were, only the folks who harbor prejudices would have objected to the title. Ay-rabs are fruit and vegetable vendors–all those I met were Blacks–who drive colorfully decorated horse carts through the streets and announce their presence by calling–singing, really–words like, “Canta-lope; canta-lo-ope.” Each vendor had a signature melodic motif in his call, and all the cries were clear, stirring, and undeniably musical. As a child, I wanted nothing more than to be able to sing like that. I still do, and I’d give a lot for the pleasure–just for a moment–to be a boy again listening, to them, rapt, as I did. I can’t say, but chances are this was subsistence work for them. Even if so, their songs told me that just enough to get by on, and a song, are all the wealth anyone could hope to have.
I might have stolen this title. I think Scott Joplin wrote a rag titled “Solace.” Maybe I’ll look it up. If I remember to. But if I can’t remember whether Scott Joplin, or anyone else, wrote a tune called “Solace,” I’m unlikely to remember to look it up.
This tune’s title, pilfered or not–is the exception to my usual failure to name tunes aptly. It’s does sound as if it’s at least empathizing with someone who’s not well. If there is a rag by this title, you’d probably think the name odd. Ragtime, is, y’know, ragtime. But if you own one of Jeremy Rifkin’s LPs you’d not be surprised. Back in the ’60s, I guess it was, Rifkin recorded a good many Joplin rags–maybe all of them–for Nonesuch, and I owned a couple of volumes. I don’t know if Rifkin printed the same quote by Joplin on the jacket of all of the LPs, but I do remember it on one of them: “Don t play this piece fast. It is never right to play ragtime fast.” So, naming a rag “Solace” is not a contradiction. And if you keep in mind where Joplin and his contemporaries performed these works, you’d think the title most appropriate.
Trash was a mischievous pup, though I’m aware this is a redundancy. Still, it’s important, for my friends had left Trash and me in the apartment when they went off to work. I had a pot of water on the stove, a pan sizzling, and my hands 100% occupied as I stood on the far end of the kitchen. Trash chose this moment to put his paws up on the stove edge; he was for sure going to bring the open, boiling pot and the bubbling butter down on himself–that was perfectly clear to me. But I was, for reasons I can’t recall, immobile at the time. So, I did all I could do: I yelled, “Trash!” Trash did not register his name, or anything else. The pot and pan edged toward him. I yelled again, “Trash!” No glimmer of recognition. In a moment of unaccountable inspiration, I yelled–in my best New York accent–“Trey-aasssh!” Trash quickly lowered his front paws to the linoleum. I fell to the floor, in raucous, Brooklyn laughter. Trash saw an opening, so he ran to me and sloppily licked my face. I let him.
I tell this story, not as an explanation for this tune’s title, but only because it’s one of the moments that I’m sure will make the “Highlights Tapes of the World.” As for why I call this tune by this name, I can’t offer you anything.
This will only take a moment of your time. A little melody I liked well enough to leave as sparse as you hear it–single guitar, single notes, plus a few bass notes provided by my snazzy, piano-black, Epiphone electric bass from Tall Toad Music in swinging downtown Petaluma, California. I told the salesman, “I want a bass, but I don’t know anything about them.” “Buy this one,” he said, reaching for a big cardboard box. “Sold,” I said. He took it out of the box and said, “We just got these in.” He played each string. “Good sign. Straight off the truck, and it’s still in tune.” Thus, I acquired a hunk of wood and steel that would serve nicely as a battering ram, should the need arise.
Some years back, I took a job as an eighth-grade English teacher in a private school. Let’s not talk about why. After I’d signed the contract, the principal told me that I’d also be teaching one math class. “Don’t worry, it’s just basic math,” she said. I was unhappy, though. If you give me a calculator and ask me to add a shortish column of figures seven times, I’ll get eight, different, incorrect answers. I routinely close checking accounts and open new ones just to see how much money I have. I’d tried balancing one once, the first time I opened an account in college. I don’t remember if trying to do it brought me to tears that night, but I do know that many times since then I’ve cried over numbers, even small ones.
But I made the most of having to teach math. I started writing funny word problems for my kids, leaving blanks for the answers, and trusting that my students would probably get them right, or come closer than I’d have. I had a whole cast of recurring characters in my problems–Mean Mr. Snoots, a girls’ basketball team called The Katydids, and some aliens called the Fthfthfth. But the favorites were the Boogieman, the Boogiewoman, and Boogiebaby. You hear a lot about the Boogieman, but not so much about the rest of the family. I thought at least feminists would appreciate my mentioning the Mrs.