Category Archives: Music

Every year around this time, I think back to my brief stint in the Empire State Youth Orchestra, and every year I get a little bit closer to appreciating and reconciling myself to that difficult time in my life. Not that anything so very terrible happened then – it was more a confluence of angsty adolescence, growing uncomfortably into myself, figuring out a growing sense of not belonging, and the general malaise of the average 15-year-old. Such a precarious place to perch. Not all my classmates would make it.

You lower your hand, clarinet will play
Raise it back up and it flies away
When you smile violins will soar
When you move your legs timpani will roar

I can hear it, I can hear it, I can hear it, I swear
All the music you’re provoking, filling up the air
It’s getting louder

This is the sound of an orchestra
I can hear it playing everywhere that you are
There is a sound for everything you do
This is the sound of my love for you
Listen to the sound of my lust for you

I didn’t belong in the Empire State Youth Orchestra either. It was the rarity of my instrument – the oboe – that got me in the door. Once there I realized too late that my talent and skill level was on the lower end of things. After excelling at so many other things with relative ease, this shook me and my already-faltering confidence to the core. It was the worst possible time for such an ego-blow, but we don’t usually have control over that kind of timing, and if the possibility of a perfect storm exists, I’ve learned to batten down the hatches. 

If you’re truly smart, you assemble your life so that you’re rarely the smartest person in the room. I wish I’d seen that then, and appreciated the wonderful talent and reservoir of musical prodigies that surrounded me. Instead, I felt only the competition, the threat, the shame of not knowing what it seemed everyone else did. In hindsight, extreme hindsight, only a rare few were true prodigies. The rest of us were mostly just kids who displayed some form of musical aptitude – some had natural talent, others like myself had to work all that much harder to reach what came easy to them. For the most part, though, we were remarkably similar, even if we did not see it. Maybe it was better that we didn’t see it. 

This is the sound of an orchestra
I can hear it playing everywhere that you are
There is a sound for everything you do
This is the sound of my love for you
Listen to the sound of my lust for you

As we grow up, we take on many instruments, mostly in the figurative sense, trying out different sounds, varying tempos, and playing our way through life from pianissimo to fortissimo. If we allow ourselves to grow, and learn all the different things this world has to show and teach us, we become the conductors of our lives. We speak several languages, we master several jobs, and we orchestrate all the little facets that comprise the simple and expansive skills of getting through the day. 

It’s getting louder
It’s getting louder
It’s getting louder
There is a sound for everything you do
Listen to the sound of my love for you.

For far too long I’ve looked at winter as a barren beast, something through which we must trudge, bundled and bound in scarves and sweaters and coats that erase all the turns and angles of a body. Faceless and formless, I felt that winter was something to be endured and suffered, a penance for all the summer fun we had. It was punishment and crime at once, at least it seemed to be. Looking back, perhaps I was wrong ~ wrong about winter, wrong about more.

The piano starts, stepping into the snow then stepping into the background and allowing the cello to cry out in plaintive sorrow, sharing the winter hurt. Their duet, as much a dance as a song, music and mental image, is sadness and reconciliation, much like the way my vision of winter has changed and evolved over the years. Could there be a new way of feeling winter that is comprised of gratitude and loveliness? Might the light at this time of year, be it sun or candle, appear more potent than what comes in summer? That would make this moment somehow just as precious, even as it feels more brittle. Does this nocturne by Chopin convey a similar shift in perception, embodying the way I’m finding a new appreciation for the wilderness of the season? Smoke and pine carry on the wind, the way the notes of this piece vibrate in similar and singular fashion.

La freak!

La freak!

Yo! Yo! Yo! Let’s go!!!

Veering toward the end of this year of insanity, here’s one last let-loose post before the year-end recap (which I’ve mercifully-shortened to two posts instead of the usual three or four -because we don’t need to prolong the agony). This is a fitting song for silliness, for a year in which I gave up the ghost of perfectionism, embracing our imperfect selves in an imperfect world. That meant being ok with looking ridiculous, a welcome change of pace which originally felt uncomfortable, but soon grew on me like a comfy pair of sweatpants in the middle of a grocery store.

I’M LAID BACK, I’M FEELING THIS
TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT, I JUST WANNA LET IT GO
HIT THE PLAYBACK, I KNOW YOU FEELING THIS
COME ON BABY, LET’S GET RIDICULOUS!

COME ON, COME ON, COME ON, COME ON
BABY LET’S GET RIDICULOUS
COME ON, COME ON, COME ON, COME ON
BABY LET’S GET RIDICULOUS

I WAS BORN TO ROCK THE PARTY
I WAS BORN TO ROCK YA BODY
I’M FRESH, I’M SLICK, I’M LA-DI-DA-DI

I’M LAID BACK, I’M FEELING THIS
TONIGHT’S THE NIGHT, I JUST WANNA LET IT GO
HIT THE PLAYBACK, I KNOW YOU FEELING THIS
COME ON BABY, LET’S GET RIDICULOUS!

COME ON, COME ON, COME ON, COME ON
BABY LET’S GET RIDICULOUS
COME ON, COME ON, COME ON, COME ON
BABY LET’S GET RIDICULOUS

For the better part of my life, even as a very young child, I’ve always been a rather serious person – perhaps too much so for my own good. Looking back, a great deal of things could have gone differently had I only learned to relax and let go and not been so hell-bent on being so right and so perfect. That’s not an easy thing to change, but this year I had to do it. There wasn’t a choice. 

That ended up being the best thing that could have happened in the tumult that was 2020. 

CRAZY, LOUD, GET WILD IN THE CROWD
LET’S GET CRAZY, LOUD, GET WILD IN THE CROWD
LET’S GET CRAZY, LOUD, GET WILD IN THE CROWD
PARTY PEOPLE
LET’S GET RIDICULOUS!

It was quite an adjustment, and a complete reversal of a mindset that took almost four and half decades to, well, perfect. That’s the thing, however – it wasn’t perfect. Even when things worked out according to itinerary and plan, even when the day or night was ordained before and after as something wonderful, it was never perfect. Because perfection is not for us to attain. Embracing that, and realizing my mistakes and shortcomings, became an adventure of its own. It was guided by therapy and meditation, grounded in honesty and difficult discussions, and in one of those magnificent strokes of the universe, it led to a lighter and somehow fuller way of living.

Admitting that I would never be perfect was the necessary first step in stumbling toward a happier existence. There was a certain freedom that came with that, and with apologizing for those times I was still figuring out and feeling my way through. Such fumbling and flailing is best done with a strong backing beat, some ass-flashing, a bit of bodacious twerking, and a blog post that can be both silly and serious  – something for the booty and the mind – at the same time. 

LET’S GET RIDICULOUS!
ALL THE TIME I’LL BE SEEING YOU AT SCHOOL
AND YOU SO FINE, I JUST HAD TO PLAY IT COOL
YOU BLOW MY MIND ALL THE CRAZY THINGS YOU DO
I SEE THAT YOU WANNA ACT A FOOL
SO BABY LET’S GET RIDICULOUS!

Let us set the holiday scene.

It’s a house that sparkles, somewhere along a historical cobblestone street, maybe in Troy or downtown Albany, the kind of house that has existed for centuries, which has seen more Christmas Eves and New Year’s Days than any of us ever would. Candelight flickers, while company laughs, ebbs and flows, pushes and parts, and more sparkle is held in a crystal glass of champagne, capturing and shattering shards of light as deadly as a necklace of nightshade.

Back then the problems were champagne of sort and level. That didn’t make them feel less valid, or hurt with diminished flair. If anything their pain felt more pointed, more acute, because it was the first brush with any hint of hurt. The single salty tear stings more than the entire ocean.

Youth and beauty and ignorant confidence glint off every surface. The loud laughter, the tailored suits, the plate rimmed in gold and balanced precariously in my hand; they leave me entranced and insecure. And so I hold my head higher, make my laughs louder, suck my stomach in just a little more and examine the effect as I pass a mirror. More sparkle, more champagne, more holiday twinkle…

On some of these nights I catch a glimpse of myself in a reflection ~ not plainly in a mirror like that, only in some curved piece of silver, some Christmas ornament, some darkened window ~ and I see what the others might see: the visage of someone who might have it all together, who might be the envy of everyone at the ball. It is only, and always, a passing fancy.

YOU BOOKED THE NIGHT TRAIN FOR A REASON
SO YOU COULD SIT THERE IN THIS HURT
BUSTLING CROWDS OR SILENT SLEEPERS
YOU’RE NOT SURE WHICH IS WORSE

This song is calling to me from a place I forgot existed. It’s a place of chilling beauty, of exile and solitude ~ the kind of solitude that is with you no matter how many people are around you, no matter how many want to hold your hand. I never let many do so, not even Andy at times. Maybe it was cruel of me. Maybe it was survival. Maybe I understood that Andy wasn’t a hand-holder either. It was very much all I knew how to do. It was the extent of how much I could allow myself to care, how much I was willing to risk. You don’t survive hurt without learning a little bit of how to prevent it. And even then, when you know it’s not fair, an instinct like a life-preserver floats stubbornly above the water, refusing to let you take that risk, refusing to let you drown again.

Champagne problems. Such a luxury to have such concerns form the heart of your difficulties. I see that now. I wonder at the way perspective changes over the years, at the way the world wears you down and opens you up. It throws worse and worse at you until you reach a point where wisdom reveals your own evolution.

BECAUSE I DROPPED YOUR HAND WHILE DANCING
LEFT YOU OUT THERE STANDING
CRESTFALLEN ON THE LANDING
CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS
YOUR MOM’S RING IN YOUR POCKET
MY PICTURE IN YOUR WALLET
YOUR HEART WAS GLASS, I DROPPED IT
CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS

This song is not about something I specifically relate to, and there’s a certain release and relief from that. Songs can be read on all sorts of levels, and the best ones mean so many things to so many different people that a single reading is no more valuable than any other. The egalitarian and universal power of good music is ever a wonder ~ the sounds of angels, the whispers of sages.

YOU TOLD YOUR FAMILY FOR A REASON
YOU COULDN’T KEEP IT IN
YOUR SISTER SPLASHED OUT ON THE BOTTLE
NOW NO ONE’S CELEBRATING

Categorizing something or someone as having “champagne problems” – not unlike the “first world problems” phrase – is both derisive and dismissive, designed to be an attack and an eradication. It fails at both tonight, the blows glancing off my velvet shoulders, the reach sadly short, and ever unassailing. Perhaps their agitation and annoyance is pure envy, a somewhat sad jealousy that their problems weren’t quite as silly and trivial. They wanted to provoke and anger and all I gave them was pity. The deadly blow is mine. It lands stealthily. It lands quietly. They won’t feel it, if they ever feel it, until much later. And then they will hate me like so many others. But when we meet again, at the next night of sparkle, they will smile and make motions to hug me.

DOM PERIGNON, YOU BROUGHT IT
NO CROWD OF FRIENDS APPLAUDED
YOUR HOMETOWN SKEPTICS CALLED IT
CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS
YOU HAD A SPEECH, YOU’RE SPEECHLESS
LOVE SLIPPED BEYOND YOUR REACHES
AND I COULDN’T GIVE A REASON
CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS

Champagne problems. The luxury of rejecting a proposal. The luxury of saying no. The luxury of being asked. The luxury of poetic pining…

“Once, when I was young and true.
Someone left me sad –
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.” – Dorothy Parker

The luxury of such bullshit.

Do we muster pity for the one who knew enough to end it, the one who was strong enough to let it go before it went to hell? I’ve not often been in that position. Too weak to do so in the past, I could never honor that before now. Wisdom comes later than needed in so many circumstances.

I once knew a woman who broke off an engagement, quite close to the original wedding date, because she had fallen in love with another guy. She had never done anything in her life quite that drastic or dramatic. In fact, she had always been one of our more sensible and pragmatic friends. Scientific to a fault, organized and methodical and regimented in almost every aspect of her life – except, in the end, when it came to her heart. We thought she had lost her mind when she did it. What the hell did we know? Twenty years and several kids later she’s still with the guy she knew was the right one. I wonder about her first fiance, sometimes. 

YOUR MIDAS TOUCH ON THE CHEVY DOOR
NOVEMBER FLUSH AND YOUR FLANNEL CURE
‘HIS DORM WAS ONCE A MADHOUSE’
I MADE A JOKE ‘WELL, IT’S MADE FOR ME’ HOW
EVERGREEN, OUR GROUP OF FRIENDS
DON’T THINK WE’LL SAY THAT WORD AGAIN
AND SOON THEY’LL HAVE THE NERVE TO DECK THE HALLS
THAT WE ONCE WALKED THROUGH

Most of us aren’t intentionally bad people ~ we do things as best as we can when life trips us up, when emotions drive us into dangerous territory. Love can be a fickle and capricious thing. I stopped trying to trap it or figure it out years ago. My friends and I are a little older now. We deal with things a little differently than we did in our 20’s, but love knows no age, it knows no reason.

ONE FOR THE MONEY, TWO FOR THE SHOW
I NEVER WAS READY, SO I WATCH YOU GO
SOMETIMES YOU JUST DON’T KNOW THE ANSWER
TILL SOMEONE’S ON THEIR KNEES AND ASKS YOU
‘SHE WOULD’VE MADE SUCH A LOVELY BRIDE
WHAT A SHAME SHE’S STUCK IN HER HEAD’ THEY SAID
BUT YOU’LL FIND THE REAL THING INSTEAD
SHE’LL PATCH UP YOUR TAPESTRY THAT I SHRED

And yet some champagne problems are sometimes much deeper than they seem. Darker and more serious, they hint of flaws that run deep, chasms that go black before you’ve even approached bottom. A fear that paralyzes, that prevents the heart from making a move. Is it better to be safe? Is there safety in refusing? Or is it safer to follow your heart and not wonder about it years later? I occasionally think about my friend who broke off her first engagement. She seems happy, surrounded by a family, sure and safe and content~ what more could anyone want?  She followed her heart and it led her to happiness. Maybe that’s the surest way to make your journey through life. I don’t know what became of her first fiance, which path he took, where he went, what he’s doing now. Surely there is something sweeter in store for the ones we leave behind.

There are at least two parts to a broken heart. And a thousand sides and stories.

AND HOLD YOUR HAND WHILE DANCING
NEVER LEAVE YOU STANDING
CRESTFALLEN ON THE LANDING
WITH CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS
YOUR MOM’S RING IN YOUR POCKET
HER PICTURE IN YOUR WALLET
AND YOU WON’T REMEMBER ALL MY
CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS

Holiday lights sparkle in different aspects now. Fuzzier in some ways, brighter in others, and this year there are no parties to distract or pull focus from the way the mind wants to wander. It’s easier to live through the pain of other people, the stories of other lives, the mistakes that aren’t our own. We want to flirt with champagne problems to avoid the real ones from which we cannot escape.

Maybe that’s why I love this song. It tells a story that’s not mine. It tells a story of champagne problems that could be real or imagined, silly or serious, frivolous or ferocious – however one wants to read them. In a way, it’s a form of reverse mindfulness – occupying the head and pushing one’s own concerns out of the space. A neat twist on meditation without the deep breathing and lotus-folded legs. 

The sadness of someone else’s pain playing its story out on the piano…

YOU WON’T REMEMBER ALL MY
CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS

The holidays linger like bad perfume
You can run, but only so far
I escaped it too, remember how you watched me leave
But if it’s okay with you, it’s okay with me

Before knowing exactly how much more often I’d be traveling home these past few weeks, I’d scheduled some fortuitous Fridays off from work, as much to make use of accumulated vacation time (unused from these previous months of non-travel) as for holiday errands and deliveries. This past Friday was one such day of minor running about, as I made my way to Amsterdam to drop off some food for my parents. The timing worked out beautifully, as the new Taylor Swift album had been released the midnight prior, and there’s nothing better than listening to good music while driving on a sunny day. This particular album was perfect for a drive on the verge of winter.

Dropping off some adobo and banana bread I’d made that morning, I stayed a safe distance from Mom and Dad in the garage as we talked of family and friends, of the sun that was still shining in December, of the changed holiday plans for this strange year and season. Yet it wasn’t bad, it wasn’t sorrowful – it was actually nice. The idea of a pared-down and simple Christmas hewed closer to home, held closer to our Christmases as children. Maybe that’s part of the lesson the universe wants us to learn right now. When the pupil is ready, the teacher always appears. 

Who’ll write books about me, if I ever make it and wonder about the only soul
Who can tell which smiles I’m faking’ and the heart I know I’m breakin’ is my own
To leave the warmest bed I’ve ever known

There have been a lot of people who have tried to supplant Madonna in my heart. A couple of them were quickly and easily dismissed ~ Britney and Christina, for example. A couple were definite contenders ~ Beyonce and Lady Gaga ~ still both possible contenders given their talent and shape-shifting durability. Now, Taylor Swift is making her move with the surprise release of a second album in a single year. It’s a bold endeavor of genius and brilliance, backed up by a collection of songcraft that is just as strong and compelling as its precursor. (Madonna should take a lesson and put down the Instagram and tattoo excursions for a bit.)

Back in the summer of 2020, Swift surprised everyone with a new album, ‘folklore’, created during everyone’s lockdown, and its indie-like feel and subdued atmosphere was the summer album we didn’t know we needed. While the season began with the necessary dance extravaganza of Dua Lipa’s instantly-iconic ‘Future Nostalgia’, it was ‘folklore’ that resonated with the quiet somberness so many of us were experiencing.

Swift’s second surprise drop, the companion/continuation of ‘folklore’ titled ‘evermore’ carries on where ‘folklore’ ended, apparently a little too soon. This is its winter sister, and she may be slightly better than the original. If I had one tiny little criticism of ‘folklore’ it was that its atmosphere felt too winter-like for such a summery release and themes; ‘evermore’ confirms this opinion, for me (others may feel quite differently) and with that it succeeds on absolutely every level, with its seasonal references to November and December, decking the halls, and titles like ’tis the damn season’.

There is holiday sparkle in a song titled ‘champagne problems’ but the underlying story is a deeper and more complex one that makes these latest albums such powerful vehicles for a mature and artistically-challenging evolution. The music behind it remains the driving force of Swift’s magic, and she has once again conjured a cohesive sonic adventure, a journey of emotional fables and modern-day folklore such as in the opening ‘willow’, continuing stories with fictional (or not?) figures like ‘dorothea’ and ‘marjorie’; those story songs paint vivid portraits, while leaving enough room for varied interpretation, which is the trick to lasting art.

Swift delves into a wiser and more blunt examination of love and romance and relationships ~ more ambivalent, more unsettling, as evidenced by the heartbreaking ‘tolerate it’ or the devastating ‘happiness’ ~ both of which posit questions of how much we are willing to take, how much we might deserve, and how undeserving we might also be. The best stories ~ the ones that reflect our own ~ are not always easily reconciled with happy endings or definitive destruction. Our hearts spill messier than that, they want things that aren’t always noble, they grasp for things that might not make sense… yet they beat on, wanting what they want, destroying when they get hurt, crying out to be understood even when they know none of it makes sense.

Swift has made another prescient album, revealing our hearts at a time when an apocalyptic year comes to its welcome close, when winter is at our doorstep and darker days haunt future corridors. These are songs to see us through such desolation, a gauzy musical mood in which the heart nestles, comforted and acknowledged, even as its restlessness and longing goes unresolved. May such music see us through to the spring.

Though it resembles a street light, the warm yellow orb in the middle of this photo is actually the recent full Blue Moon we had on Halloween. It’s usually a toss-up between a full moon or Mercury in retrograde as far as which will wreak the most havoc. Knowing we were in the midst of both, I’ve been keeping quiet at those times when I’m sure I’m right, because no one seems to like someone who’s always right. If I had a Q-Rating it would most certainly not be good. Back to the moon – this Blue Moon – and a song sung by Ella Fitzgerald to warm the not-so-chilly nights we’ve had of late.

BLUE MOON YOU SAW ME STANDING ALONE
WITHOUT A DREAM IN MY HEART
WITHOUT A LOVE OF MY OWN

BLUE MOON, YOU KNEW JUST WHAT I WAS THERE FOR
YOU HEARD ME SAYING A PRAYER FOR 
SOMEONE I REALLY COULD CARE FOR

I don’t know where or when I first heard this song, but I’ve known it forever. It’s one of those songs most people know without knowing specifically how they know it. Tom Ford used it to romantic effect in his debut masterpiece ‘A Single Man’ but I knew it long before then, and I recall it hazily from solitary nights between Boston and Brandeis, when the moon would peek out from behind the turret where my dorm room was suspended in the sky, and I’d wonder at the beauty of it, and whether we were designed to share such beauty, or simply indulge in it alone.

AND THEN THERE SUDDENLY APPEARED BEFORE ME
THE ONLY ONE MY ARMS WILL EVER HOLD
I HEARD SOMEBODY WHISPER “PLEASE ADORE ME”
AND WHEN I LOOKED, THE MOON HAD TURNED TO GOLD

BLUE MOON NOW I’M NO LONGER ALONE
WITHOUT A DREAM IN MY HEART
WITHOUT A LOVE OF MY OWN

These days the moon holds a different allure, a more tentative grasp on romance. It sends us into fits of lunacy more often than not, especially when it’s pulling full, and the world goes slightly mad. Careful the things you wish for, it seems to say, before rocking us again and exerting its maniacal force. Not even Friday the 13^thholds such sway. And so we eye it with trembling trepidation, respectful and somewhat in awe of its power. Blue or gold, harvest or wolf, it demands reverence, and a song.

AND THEN THERE SUDDENLY APPEARED BEFORE ME
THE ONLY ONE MY ARMS WILL EVER HOLD
I HEARD SOMEBODY WHISPER “PLEASE ADORE ME”
AND WHEN I LOOKED, THE MOON HAD TURNED TO GOLD

BLUE MOON NOW I’M NO LONGER ALONE
WITHOUT A DREAM IN MY HEART
WITHOUT A LOVE OF MY OWN

Only Ella Fitzgerald could conjure such a wistful and melancholic portrait of autumn, and it seems right for a rainy autumn day. Or night – this may be too moody for a daytime romp. It requires a darkness not provided by an overcast day. Thankfully, our Thanksgiving cactus is already in early bud, signaling the arrival of earlier nights.

WHEN AN EARLY AUTUMN WALKS THE LAND AND CHILLS THE BREEZE
AND TOUCHES WITH HER HAND THE SUMMER TREES,
PERHAPS YOU’LL UNDERSTAND WHAT MEMORIES I OWN.
THERE’S A DANCE PAVILION IN THE RAIN ALL SHUTTERED DOWN,

A WINDING COUNTRY LANE ALL RUSSET BROWN,
A FROSTY WINDOW PANE SHOWS ME A TOWN GROWN LONELY.
THAT SPRING OF OURS THAT STARTED SO APRIL-HEARTED,
SEEMED MADE FOR JUST A BOY AND GIRL.

I NEVER DREAMED, DID YOU, ANY FALL WOULD COME IN VIEW
SO EARLY, EARLY.
DARLING IF YOU CARE, PLEASE, LET ME KNOW,
I’LL MEET YOU ANYWHERE, I MISS YOU SO.
LET’S NEVER HAVE TO SHARE ANOTHER EARLY AUTUMN.