Let’s ignore the fact that she was born in 1989, when I was already fourteen years old and bopping along to ‘Like A Prayer‘ and ‘Express Yourself’ and instead focus on the December 13th part, on which we celebrate the birth of the brilliance that is Taylor Swift. For many years I was a reluctant Swiftie of sorts, not quite a hard-core fan, but not quite a hater either. There were moments she thrilled and chilled me, and her musical song-writing prowess has never been in question. It took ‘folklore’ to bring me fully into the Swiftie camp, and ‘evermore’ solidified that standing. Today, I’m a die-hard fan, who is embarking on a re-visiting of all her previous work thanks to the Taylor’s Versions coming out at full-throttle.
Here, in honor of her birthday, are all the songs that have touched me so far, with plenty more just waiting to be written:
Comeuppance doesn’t always happen when it should. It doesn’t always arrive just at the moment the person who needs the lesson most should by right and justice and karma get their just desserts. Sometimes it comes years later, and over all that time in slow deterioration and gradual degradation. It eats away gently, insidiously, and so perfectly you don’t even realize it. And it’s usually the ones who inflict the hurt who aren’t the ones left unscathed in the end.
Mr. Perfect face
Mr. Here to stay
Mr. Looked me in the eye and told me you would never go away
Everything was right
Mr. I’ve been waiting for you all my life
Mr. Every single day until the end, I will be by your side
But that was when I got to know Mr. Change of heart
Mr. Leaves me all alone ~ I fall apart
It takes everything in me just to get up each day
But it’s wonderful to see that you’re okay
Sometimes, the intended recipient of the lesson doesn’t even know the song was written about them. Sometimes we don’t think we were even worthy of something like a song. Or a letter. Or a regret. And the hurt that we never meant to hurt so much rebounds in the most brilliantly hurtful way, taking its toll the long way – the lifelong limp to some sort of damage, some irrevocable damage. There are some things you cannot take back. There are some breaks that can never be mended. There are some hurts that simply won’t heal.
Hello Mr. Perfectly fine
How’s your heart after breaking mine?
Mr. Always at the right place at the right time, baby
Hello Mr. Casually cruel
Mr. Everything revolves around you
I’ve been Miss Misery since your goodbye
And you’re Mr. Perfectly fine
Mr. Never told me why
Mr. Never had to see me cry
Mr. Insincere apology so he doesn’t look like the bad guy
He goes about his day
Forgets he ever even heard my name
Well, I thought you might be different than the rest
I guess you’re all the same
Most people don’t think of themselves as the villain in any story. It’s very hard to admit when that’s the case, and even when we realize it might be so, we can still justify and explain our actions so as to be seen as complex instead of cruel, honest instead of hurtful. The mangled contortions involved in so masterfully switching the narrative, tweaking it just so, hanging innocence on singularly exact words and creating a maze of semantics, too often result in a shroud filled with holes – a net not capable of capturing the smoke of what only ever amounts to a lie.
‘Cause I hear he’s got his arm ’round a brand-new girl
I’ve been pickin’ up my heart, he’s been pickin’ up her
And I never got past what you put me through
But it’s wonderful to see that it never phased you
Hello Mr. Perfectly fine
How’s your heart after breakin’ mine?
Mr. Always at the right place at the right time, baby
Hello Mr. Casually cruel
Mr. Everything revolves around you
I’ve been Miss Misery since your goodbye
And you’re Mr. Perfectly fine
While we toil at seeing ourselves as the villain, we have no problem seeing ourselves as the central character of every story we think we’re living. We aren’t alone. A geocentric view of the universe is the original mistake we as humans made. We’re still making that same mistake, still thinking the world revolves around us. It doesn’t make us bad. It just means we’re human, and humans were designed to fail first and fix later.
So dignified in your well-pressed suit
So strategized, all the eyes on you
Sashay away to your seat
It’s the best seat, in the best room
Oh, he’s so smug, Mr. Always wins
So far above me in every sense
So far above feeling anything
And it’s really such a shame
It’s such a shame
‘Cause I was Miss Here to stay
Now I’m Miss Gonna be alright someday
And someday maybe you’ll miss me
But by then, you’ll be Mr. Too late
When I used to drink too much, I’d get to a point where friends would ask if I was okay, and I’d always snarl, “I’m fine” with a laugh and half a scream. When I was sober and someone hurt me, friends would also ask if I was okay, and I’d say the same thing – “I’m fine” – with a dismissive shake of the head. These both occurred with some regularity over the years. It turned out I was never fine. Not perfectly fine, not imperfectly fine, not fine at all.
Goodbye Mr. Perfectly fine
How’s your heart after breakin’ mine?
Mr. Always at the right place at the right time, baby
Goodbye Mr. Casually cruel
Mr. Everything revolves around you
I’ve been Miss Misery for the last time
And you’re Mr. Perfectly fine
You’re perfectly fine
Mr. Look me in the eye and told me you would never go away
You said you’d never go away
And then one day, maybe near the end of our lives, we forgive, or we forget – there’s eventually no big distinction between the two. It then becomes… nothing. Like we never met. Like it never happened. None of the hurt, and none of the happiness. We work so hard toward erasing the bad bits, to overcoming the sad parts, to picking up all the pieces – and we forget the music and we lose the song. If we’re lucky, we hear it again, and it strikes in a different way. We allow ourselves to see our part in the pain. We acknowledge it. We own up to it. We apologize in our heart – as sorry for someone else’s damage as for our own – because it’s always the same, always from the same place. A tear is a tear, no matter what pushes it down the cheek.
A few feet above me, the wind rushes by in a brutal moan. Sitting in the attic, I look slowly upward at the ceiling, which is also the roof, and I listen as it creaks and crackles. There’s something exhilarating about being this close to nature’s wrath in the middle of the night, and still remaining warm and cozy. It’s hyggelig, and in the amber glow of a Charlie Brown-like Christmas tree, I snuggle into the space while the wind makes another pass above the roof.
Andy has warned that the rain will soon turn to snow, making for a messy commute the next morning; for now it’s not quite cold enough to turn the water solid, and not quite heavy enough to make a sound on the roof. All I can hear is the dull rolling wind, like the most muted thunder in the distance. It rumbles with an occasional whistle, one of those enchanting entities that can only be heard or felt, never seen, even as it surrounds you. Like music.
On this almost-winter night, a piano lends its voice to the wind, and the duet is unexpectedly pleasant and calming. It’s usually easier to sleep when the wind is providing its ambient noise, the same way it’s easier to fall asleep to the sound of rain falling. When there’s no noise, every little sound is calamitous; when there’s an ocean or the dull fall of rain in the background, it blunts those cacophonous explosions.
This was intended as a night-time post, but at this time of the year some of us rise before there is light in the sky, and in that stillness and silence perhaps a little piano music might be of use.
This song rounds out a triumvirate of Christmas tunes that exist in the more abstract memory recesses of my mind – recalled vaguely for their melody, and for some ethereal sense of Christmas and winter. The first was ‘The Holly and The Ivy‘, and the second was ‘Bring a Torch Jeannette, Isabella‘- this is another airy entry. The idea of three ships sailing in for Christmas seems like a glad one, but it doesn’t speak to any Christmases I ever had in landlocked upstate New York. Instead, I set sail in the boughs of an evergreen, floating high above the little city of Amsterdam and soaring mostly in my fantasies.
There was one evergreen in our backyard, right at the corner of the pool deck, perfectly formed like the standard Christmas tree, only this one rose about 70 feet in the air. Its branches started low enough to the ground that we could jump up and climb into its heart. The lower branches were spaced at even ladder-paces, perfect for a young boy to practice his climbing. The evergreen needles were healthy and bushy, and the space close to the trunk, where I’d cling so carefully, was mostly hidden to any prying eyes. I loved that secret aspect of the climb more than anything else.
As one neared the top, the branches spaced out a bit, and the needle cover was increasingly sparse. The higher one went, the greater the risk for exposure, but oh how much more exciting the view got, along with the exhilarating feeling of being that high above the ground. I was level with the top floors of our house, and it looked small and quaint at such a distance and from such a height.
At that height, one could also feel the sway of the tree. The trunk was no longer as wide as my young torso. It wasn’t as stiff and stalwart as it was near the ground. Thinner and more malleable, it would shift in the wind, and all that once felt safe and secure was suddenly seen as flexible and changeable, subject to the whims of the wind. There was a thrill in that too.
If we were by the shore, such a vantage point would prove useful for seeing any ships that were coming in for Christmas. As it was, I only saw more sky, a bit more land, and a view reserved for the birds and the butterflies.
The origins of ‘Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella’ are interesting, and with the advent of google and the internet itself, you can have at it. Something about two farmhands and Christ and, well, you get the idea (even if I didn’t). This song didn’t resonate with me until a few years ago, and not for its lyrics, but for its simple melody. It was supposed to be a song for French nobility, so maybe that’s why it speaks to me. In a previous life it’s almost certain my head was lost at the guillotine. Most days, I’m still paying for it.
Qui vient là, frappant de la sorte?
Qui vient là, en frappant comme ça?
Ouvrez-donc, j’ai posé sur un plat
De bons gâteaux, qu’ici j’apporte
Toc! Toc! Ouvrons-nous la porte!
Toc! Toc! Faisons grand gala!
While I’m printing the French lyrics here, it is the instrumental version that I enjoy most, especially when it’s on some crazy-ass guitar as seen above. What in hell is that thing and how do I play it?! Sign me up for those lessons.
C’est un tort, quand l’Enfant sommeille,
C’est un tort de crier si fort.
Taisez-vous, l’un et l’autre, d’abord!
Au moindre bruit, Jésus s’éveille.
Chut! chut! Il dort à merveille,
Chut! chut! Voyez comme il dort!
All wacky zaniness aside (it’s way past the expiration date of learning a new instrument), I’m adding this to the Christmas repertoire for seasonal accompaniment to all your merry-making.
Two queens in a king-sized bed
There’s no mistletoe above our heads
But I’ll kiss you anyway on Christmas day
Yeah, I’ll kiss you anyway on Christmas day
I don’t have a lot to give
But I would give you everything
All my time is yours to spend
Let me wrap you in with my skin
With my skin
This song is a good one to play when you’re not quite ready to get out of bed in the morning, or when you find yourself napping at the same time as your husband, something that happened happily a few days ago. I found myself lying down just for a moment after work, and that moment turned into a few, and then I was fast asleep. When I woke, Andy was beside me, covered in blankets and warmth. I stayed there a little while longer in the darkness of early afternoon, simply enjoying the comfort of the moment. That’s hygge.
Two queens in a king-sized bed
Like angels in the snow
My only wish is one more year
And then I want them all
Your freckled cheeks, our tangled feet
The closer, the better it gets
So let’s stay right here
Until forever disappears
I don’t have a lot to give
But I would give you everything
All my time is yours to spend
Let me wrap you in with my skin
With my skin
When the wind whips by the windows on a cold, clear, almost-cloud-free day, and the tan grass heads nod in brutal agreement, it marks a moment to indulge in a bit of coziness with a loved one. There is calm here, and there is quiet here, and the world could use more of both during the Christmas season.
Two queens in a king-sized bed
Mm, there’s no mistletoe above our heads
But I’ll kiss you anyway on Christmas day
Yeah, I’ll kiss you anyway on Christmas day
There is nothing more comforting than taking an early-afternoon nap with your husband as December gets underway. Let the season of hygge begin.
We have arrived at the first of December, easing into the high holiday season with a little holly and ivy, and a couple of rustic renditions of this traditional Christmas carol. As December has only just begun, it feels too soon to be so consumed by the chaos and cacophony of holiday mayhem, and so I’m pushing back, clearing the mental space and readjusting the mindset with a return to simplicity. This is my usual goal at this time of the year: to make the holidays a simple and quiet experience that approaches something slightly spiritual.
That’s not always an easy frame of mind to maintain, and I have often spun way off trying to do too many things and see and entertain too many people, but in the age of COVID, staying somewhat isolated and safer lends for more moments of quiet and stillness. For a socially-anxious introvert, it’s my comfort zone, and instead of resisting that in an effort to fit in and go with the flow, I’m embracing my natural state of being. Hence this quieter beginning…
This is not one of those bombastic Christmas songs that all the kids love to sing. It’s old-fashioned, with a multi-layered history of meanings – the crux of the Christian and the Pagan or some other bullshit – but when I was a kid it was one of those songs that signified the role of nature in the Christmas season, and the outdoor beauty of winter.
It was the crystalline magnificence of the morning sunlight through a piece of ice dangling off the edge of an evergreen leaf. It was the gloriously sharp scent of pine trees, entwined with the faint smoke of a fireplace somewhere in the distance. It was a winter walk in the woods, away from people and noise and the stresses of everyday life. It was something that feels less real to me the older I get, but I know I had those moments because I remember them – scattered and vague and likely an amalgamation of various woodland memories – and no less real because of that.
Between the suburbs and the city, most of the brushes with holly and ivy that I get these days are part of landscaping or gardens – a far cry from any forest path that probably never existed in the first place. That’s where these photos came from: a stand of holly along the Southwest Corridor Park in Boston, and a patch of ivy in front of some brownstone. On the grand scale of things, they may not be all that spectacular, but when taken in up-close they become a little forest in and of themselves. Stilling the moment to pause and reflect on the holiday memories that each evoked, it was possible to conjure entire winter worlds from a single leaf and berry.
Whenever this holiday season starts to veer away from this central tenet of seasonal significance, I will return to this post as a reminder of a simpler time. It will also serve to remind of the beauty of winter – and that always lasts much longer than Christmas.
Welcome, December.
From your scarlet berries of holly to the entwining tendrils of your ivy, you inspire with your raw beauty. Tucked into the very end of the calendar year, you are the finale and the beginning of something new all at once.
“Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go…”
The seasonal song plays in my head as I look for Thanksgiving music to go with the moment almost at hand. Somehow, it isn’t quite right this year, and that’s ok. We will bend our lives to the times at hand, and in a pandemic that means being flexible with dates and dinners, and music fit for a Thanksgiving feast. To that end, I’m listening to Vince Guaraldi’s music, which is a whimsical, jazz-inflected entrance to the holiday season.
It’s not quite Christmas, but Guaraldi’s musical styling for the Charlie Brown Christmas Special is so indelible and tied to the holidays that this Thanksgiving music feels festive enough to see us into the season proper. A bit of morning fall sun is also a lovely entrance to the weekend.
Entering the season of gratitude and thankfulness, this is a good time to center ourselves, to remember what is really important, to return to a place of simplicity and grace. Every year I say I’m going to go back to basics and every year I fail – but there is something to be said for the trying, something earnest and genuine in the attempt, and maybe I’ve nudged myself a bit closer to the goal year by year. Perhaps this will be the one where it finally happens.
It’s a luxury to revisit past pain, as that usually indicates there’s nothing present going on to fill such a void. In this case, I’ll leave the artistic expression to Taylor Swift‘s re-release of ‘All Too Well’ (Taylor’s Version) which comes with a raw video that some have speculated is about her relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal. It brought about a rash of online heartbreak memories and break-up ghosts. Who needs that shit when so much else is going on? Who knows. And who cares. We all have those memories. They still cut, they still sting, and when they claim you like the ghosts they are, they leave the same chill they did before.
In my case, it was a January or February moment in Chicago, that was just as cold and brutal as everyone thinks Chicago is. The city was never quite that way – but the circumstances were. On this Saturday morning he accompanied me downtown, but left when we were only halfway there, and I didn’t have the courage or strength to fight it. I got off in some neighborhood I didn’t know, stumbling to some pretty storefront that looked like it might have a little piece of beauty that might prove a balm on my heart. It was all I could do, it was my way of survival: to find a sliver of beauty that made it worth living in the world. To keep me alive… just until the next day, the next hour, the next minute. How would I go on beyond that? Why would I want to?
A potted group of paperwhite Narcissus was in bloom there, sending up their star-shaped blooms and their pungent perfume. They were hidden in plain sight, in a green-house-like room fronted by wavy panes of ancient glass, where it felt like I could be hidden in plain sight too. My grief rendered me suddenly invisible, a doubly-debilitating and cruel trick that preyed upon the very insecurities which had me constantly doubting whether I even existed.
A recording from 2018 already feels like it’s from another lifetime ago, and a world far, far away, but the music from Karel Barnoski’s ‘Tiny Telephone Sessions’ has aged like a fine wine, its themes and musical motifs growing more resonant as we try to hold on to the joy we once found in art and music and the creation of something that shows us how we live when we are in the throes of it all. Originally released on vinyl, Barnoski is re-releasing it digitally at long last – check it out here on Spotify.
Rushing along like a stream in the aftermath of winter, ‘I’m on My Way’ cascades down while beginning its aural ascent on the opening track. The idea of water accompanies my thoughts as I listen to this music – perhaps inspired by the photos I’ve seen of Karel’s fishing trips, or his recent painting endeavors which shimmer with watery movement.
This was where he was before the world shut down, and this collection of songs is a reflection of a place that may no longer exist, in the same way a section of a stream is different from moment to moment. (It also illuminates the transfixing beginnings of themes he would go on to further explore in 2020’s resplendent ‘Welcome Home’.)
While the moving ‘Dad’s Song’ evokes contemplative musing in the still and slow moments between its rolling arpeggios, ‘Kathryn’s Waltz’ is full of pretty hopes and hopeful wishes, a whimsical dance fit for dandelion seeds on the wind. That wind shifts a bit, and there is a dark and mysterious undercurrent running through ‘In Between’, but every time it seems ripe for a bit of brooding, the melody turns and the pace changes. This ebb and flow pushes and pulls within the space of sound, contracting and releasing as if acting as some beating heart debating whether to survive by consistency or adventure ~ the ultimate crux of the in-between.
Another gem in three-quarter time, ‘Lola’s Waltz’ makes its turns in fanciful form tinged with the slightest touches of melancholy, approaching the precious but veering just shy of the cloying with a masterful restraint from indulgence. Further confounding this sweetness, the exhilarating ‘Polish Dance’ is a fun romp that starts off at a gallop and ends in an absolute mad dash. ‘Spanish March’ begins where one might expect, then quickly takes a detour – a river that bends and throws curve after curve until you’re certain it’s doubled in on itself and there’s only space for splashing and silliness.
With ‘Move That’ the album shifts from its classical leanings on the grand piano into something more casual and loose, finding Barnoski swinging along on an upright piano, electric keyboard and organ. The split makes more sense when you realize that ‘Tiny Telephone Sessions’ was first released as a two-sided vinyl record. This second side, nostalgic both for its initial vinyl inception and its ragtime-roots, shouldn’t work as well as it does, but Barnoski’s skill at bringing a bit of grace and elegance to the songs here, coupled with his skills as pianist, ultimately creates a work of cohesive unity.
The sugary-funk of the bluesy ‘Banana Split’ is pure fun – the first notion of release and abandon, while ‘Coming For You’ and ‘Barrelhouse Rag’ descend into even bluer territory, the sound river growing a little more rollicking ~ the stuff of rafts and raw energy, enervating and driving, the way water doesn’t want to stop in its run. ‘In the Trunk’ hops along gently, reminding of another stream, another fishing expedition, another interesting journey back through a childhood memory.
Finishing things off with ‘Lowell Street’, we seem to tilt out of the water and right into the nightlife of some magical city that’s as gritty and grimy as it is fascinating and filled with the flotsam and jetsam of inspiration. Seeds that carry on the wind again. Music that moves along like water, in all its varying forms and moody incarnations. In an all-too-brisk half hour the world of ‘Tiny Telephone Sessions’ has come and gone – a world we all once inhabited, brought to life again in the way only an old favorite tune can wheedle out faded memories as it’s played on a piano in a darkened room that now feels empty, and all the more beautiful for it.
When this song first stormed the world charts, I was only about ten years old. It was the zenith of the 80’s, and it was the period in which I began to be aware of the pop music scene. Songs from the mid-to-late-80’s would form the soundtrack to the formative portion of my life, and to this day they kindle some of the most powerful emotions and memories.
For this one, I don’t have any specific recollections – I just remember it breezing along on the radio, redolent of those glorious 80’s, and given a shine by my coming-of-age in the ensuing years. In the same way that this recent redoing of a pop song like ‘Downtown’ rendered it in more melancholy and emotional form, this version of A-Ha’s ‘Take On Me’ was redone by the original band, and it evokes more feelings than the first time around.
So needless to say I’m odds and ends But I’ll be Stumbling away Slowly learning that life is okay Say after me It’s no better to be safe than sorry…
On a trying Monday night, because all Mondays are trying in some fashion, but the first Monday in November feel especially unbearable, I sit down in the attic and type away trying to find a way to exorcize the demons of the day. My hair is unstyled after a shower, and my black t-shirt has a streak of white paint from when I painted the room in which I now sit. I’m all a bit of a mess, odds and ends, stumbling and bumbling and no more safe than sorry. The words ring differently without a bright dance beat to them, the melody more plaintive than I ever remember the world being when I was ten years old. Maybe this is what being an adult feels like, and why so many refuse to give in to it.
Oh, things that you say Yeah, is it a life or Just to play My worries away You’re all the things I’ve got to remember You’re shying away I’ll be coming for you anyway
The things we each must do to take on the world.
And the things that we must do to let someone else take us on.
Taking me on will never be an easy task. For better or worse, I’ve designed it that way, and it will always be harder to love me because I’ve spent too many years protecting myself to let that go now. But if you don’t mind, I’m going to keep asking and trying and hoping to be loved, and doing my best to deserve it.
I don’t know what I’m to say I’ll say it anyway Today is another day to find you Shying away I’ll be coming for your love, okay?
WHEN YOU’VE GOT WORRIES, ALL THE NOISE AND THE HURRY
SEEMS TO HELP I KNOW
DOWNTOWN
Most kids think of their parents simultaneously as the most glamourous people on earth as well as the oldest people on earth. I was no different, so when my Mom told us stories of how she used to go shopping in downtown Albany, it felt like the fanciest place in the world. She also had a record (a real vinyl record) of Petula Clark singing her signature hit ‘Downtown’ that I would play on our first record player and imagine my mother walking along Pearl Street seeking out a dress or hat or a piece of jewelry. She grew up in the time of Jackie Kennedy and the elegant suit dresses of Chanel paired with a pill box hat. It was a classic style that endures to this day.
JUST LISTEN TO THE MUSIC OF THE TRAFFIC IN THE CITY
LINGER ON THE SIDEWALK WHERE THE NEON SIGNS ARE PRETTY
HOW CAN YOU LOSE?
Years later, she would also show us the brighter lights of New York City and Boston, and I would eventually get lost in both on occasion, but somehow they always paled in comparison to the way little old downtown Albany sounded when it was the most exciting retail perch near Hoosick Falls or Amsterdam, NY. While its days of bustling feel lost forever, there are still glimmers of it when all the state workers are out and about for lunch, or when a new restaurant or store opens up. They are too often fleeting, but some linger…
THE LIGHT’S SO MUCH BRIGHTER THERE
YOU CAN FORGET ALL YOUR TROUBLES,
FORGET ALL YOUR CARES
SO GO DOWNTOWN
THINGS WILL BE GREAT WHEN YOU’RE DOWNTOWN
NO FINER PLACE FOR SURE
DOWNTOWN
EVERYTHING’S WAITING FOR YOU
DOWNTOWN… DOWNTOWN
This revamped version of ‘Downtown’ as sung by Anya Taylor-Joy in ‘Last Night in Soho’ is the remake I didn’t realize we needed, bringing a melancholic undertow to the notion of Downtown as a frame of mind, a time and place lost to history but rekindled in a new generation, and a new way of making one’s way through the world. The original optimism of the song is tempered by the recent decades that have certainly worked to dampen such enthusiasm. Yet hope remains on the wistful and breezy notion of finding spaces and places of escape.
DON’T HANG AROUND AND LET YOUR PROBLEMS SURROUND YOU
THERE ARE MOVIE SHOWS DOWNTOWN
MAYBE YOU KNOW SOME LITTLE PLACES TO GO TO
WHERE THEY NEVER CLOSE DOWNTOWN
JUST LISTEN TO THE RHYTHM OF A GENTLE BOSSA NOVA
YOU’LL BE DANCING WITH THEM TOO BEFORE THE NIGHT IS OVER
HAPPY AGAIN
There is a time in most of our lives – maybe our twenties, sometimes into our thirties -when the world feels as glamorous as it will ever feel, when we are as handsome and young and fashionably turned out as we will ever be, and if we’re lucky we catch the feeling, and feel the crest and synergy of it as we walk in our own ideas of Downtown. Somewhere my memory turns into that of my mother’s, and I’m browsing the endless counters at some department store, spritzing perfume and letting the silk of scarves run through my fingers as if they were the smallest jewel-like streams of water.
Sooner or later we all come home for Halloween. Whether it’s where we start off as kids, exploding onto the sidewalks through the crunch of leaves, tripping on our costumes and finding our way through masks at a time before they were an everyday accoutrement, or where we return after a night of trick-or-treating, spent and happily exhausted, but not enough to run to bed before a few hits of candy, home is where Halloween ends and begins. When we get older, it’s where we station ourselves to give back to the next generation of costume-clad children, opening our door and doling out candy from the other side of the scene in a time-honored tradition that forms the first peak of the fall season, and ushering in the earliest part of the holidays to come.
That idea of being home for Halloween – in whatever form home may take these days – informed the lyrics to this year’s Halloween song – our first in ten years. When the inspiration hit me, I was already tucked in bed for the night, but the Halloween spirits whispered and nudged and impelled me to the computer, where I groggily typed out these lyrics in a mixture of possession and mad delight. At the same time, a melody emerged to go with the chorus, and writing music is something that I don’t usually do. Having matriculated at the School of Madonna, which is by all accounts hardly a proper School of Music, I knew little to nothing about writing the musical part of a song, but I made a quick recording of what I was hearing in my head (in sad, pitiful voice) and stored it away to sing to the real music men later. Texting the lyrics off to Joe, I got a reply almost immediately that he was up for working on our Halloween song again – a reunion that had been ten years in the making.
No one talks about the way we all come home for Halloween
No one wants to be that weeping, screaming, mellow drama queen
No one knows the freedom some of us have found behind the mask
No one dares to be the brave soul, only one of whom will ask
The day I drove to Connecticut to visit Missy and Joe and their kids, Julian and Cameron, it was sunny and idyllic – the perfect fall day to inspire a new Halloween song. Within minutes of my arrival, Joe and I sat down beside his guitar garden and began pounding out the basic bones and structure of the song. I sang my little melody for the chorus, and an embarrassingly-rough verse, both of which he took and made into something beautiful and truly melodic. He recorded the basic notes, plotted the chord progressions, and the primitive blueprint began to take shape as an actual piece of music.
There’s a fright, there’s a cut, there’s a knife,
there’s a wicked way of making it through the night.
There’s a dream, there’s a scream, make a scene,
it’s a scary scheme for finding your way to the light.
We moved upstairs to where the keyboard and computer and real recording equipment was set up – in Julian’s Cozy Fall Studio – warmed by apple and pumpkin scented candles, seasonal gourds and garlands, and the warm glow of an afternoon sun moving deeper into the horizon. Joe masterfully pounded out the framework of the chorus, and then, to my surprise and delight, came up with the first jewel of the song: the pre-chorus above that is absolutely my favorite part of the whole song.
{Chorus}: Halloween, Halloween, will you answer, tell me why?
All the goblins, all the witches, all the children going by
Halloween, Halloween, will you treat before you trick?
Halloween, oh Halloween, I hear your tock, I hear your tick.
The next day we worked on finishing the basic structure and fitting the lyrics in, then the second jewel arrived in the form of Julian and his gorgeous cello stylings, which added just the right element to the second pre-chorus, as well as backing the breakdown of the chorus near the end. It lended a grounding beauty to the cheesy, over-the-top feel we were originally intending, and immediately made this song into something more than I initially thought possible.
Here we are now at the front door, giving candy to the kids
On the flip side of adulthood, trying not to flip our lids
Was it more fun on the outside? Oh that funny twist of fate
Still we sing this to the phantom and the pumpkin oh-so-great
That afternoon Doug and Julio arrived to join us for dinner and, to Doug’s surprise, to sing on the song. My singing abilities are solely for the car or the shower, in other words I have a voice that was made for isolation, with a tone and pitch that can only be compared to that of a howler monkey. Joe has a fine voice but since I’d already tasked him with just about everything else, it was left to Doug to step up and give his vocal talents to the project at hand. And step up he did – not only nailing every note and cadence, but adding the third jewel to this song in the form of those luscious melodies you hear in the second verse and the ending chorus.
There’s a fright, there’s a cut, there’s a knife,
there’s a wicked way of making it through the night (through the night!)
There’s a dream, there’s a scream, make a scene,
it’s a scary scheme for finding your way to the light (to the light!)
One of the absolute highlights of my year was simply being allowed in the same room as these two musical masters while they crafted and worked through the singing of a song I had a hand in writing. While they spoke in musical terms that went far beyond my barely-recalled memories of the Empire State Youth Orchestra, I was content to sit quietly in the corner and suggest we change the word ‘still’ to ‘so’. It was an honor just to be in the proximity of them as they worked and the song took flight.
{Chorus}: Halloween, Halloween, will you answer, tell me why?
All the goblins, all the witches, all the children going by
Halloween, Halloween, will you treat before you trick?
Halloween, oh Halloween, I hear your tock, I hear your tick.
While Julio and Missy toiled and troubled with the kids downstairs, we laid down all the tracks to get what we needed for the final mixing the next morning. It was one of the most fun nights of the year, and the good spirit and bonhomie bled into a song that I hope everyone loves as much as I do.
{Chorus}: Halloween, Halloween, will you answer, tell me why?
All the goblins, all the witches, all the children going by
Halloween, Halloween, will you treat before you trick?
Halloween, oh Halloween, I hear your tock, I hear your tick.
Many thanks to all of these great friends, who each contributed in their own way:
Joseph Abramo – For the musical prowess, the guitar garden, the skills and knowledge to make it all come together, and especially for the chance to do it all again.
Julian Abramo – For the magnificent cello work and use of the Cozy Fall Recording Studio.
Douglas Coates – For the vocals and those dreamy, creamy Carpenter harmonies.
Julio Vazquez – For the heartfelt talk and driving Doug home.
Cameron Abramo – For the fashion, the ferocity and the spider-walk.
In times of artistic doubt and uncertainty, sometimes it is best to simply sit and wait.
Sometimes it will come to you the next day.
Sometimes it takes ten years.
Ten years ago was the last time that my friend Joe and I crafted a Halloween song. Up until then we’d made it a late summer/early fall tradition to create a song for Halloween, following a few years in which he wrote some on his own. In this last decade, a lot has happened – in both of our lives – and for various reasons we never quite got it together to come up with another Halloween song. I think we were both fine with that, but I also think something was missing, and this year we found our way back to a place that fulfilled our creative expression and fostered our friendship.
After capping a few Halloween songs with an elaborate (for my limited capability) video in 2011, we may have both feared trying to top something that for us felt like a peak. There were other things at work too – parenthood and jobs and the way life throws one obstacle after another at us until we either turn bitter or jaded or entirely apathetic to the world at large. That’s not a good place to produce anything that might move people.
While I cannot speak for Joe, I can say that at various times in the last ten years I’ve felt like I lost my way a bit, and feeling lost is scary emotional territory. It’s often too frightening to exorcize through writing or artistic expression, and so we dive into the mundane details of life, merely going through the motions and trying to find ourselves in what society says we should be doing.
That rarely works.
All the goblins and the witches don’t disappear just because you close your eyes and pretend they’re not there. We may have stopped making Halloween music but that didn’t silence the demons that lurked far beyond Halloween, and only when I started delving into that and working on things I hadn’t addressed since childhood did I find my own way back to our tradition.
When Joe posted a few Facebook memories of the songs we’d done before, I watched and remembered. Those were such happy times, and it wasn’t because we were making great art or the perfect song – we were just creating and having fun and enjoying the way that making something together binds two friends closer in a manner that almost nothing else approaches. When I realized that, I also realized it was time to do it again.
That night a melody for a chorus snuck into my head, the lyrics poured out of me onto the computer screen, and I shot off a text to Joe with the idea. He wrote back that he was game, and our collaboration had begun. The video snippet above is just a sneak peek of our Halloween song for 2021: ‘Home for Halloween’. The full story, and song, complete with some special guest collaborators, is coming this week.
No one talks about the way we all come home for Halloween…
