Stevie Nicks is about to provide the bulk of the soundtrack for our October listening list (coming up shortly, since we just released the Fade-to-Black Fall Playlist). I hear her siren’s call, drawn to the sweet music, and the spicy scent of pine warmed by the afternoon sun in our little side-yard, and I try to join in the dance. It’s there in the wind. It’s there in a falling leaf. It’s there in the soft and sticky brush of pine needles.

I’m tired
I’m thirsty
I’m wild-eyed
In my misery

Timeless in your finery
It’s a high price
For your luxury

In times of doubt and uncertainty, I find it best to reconnect with nature. Sitting in the soft blanket comprised of leaves and moss, the earth embraces all of us if we let it. There is healing in that embrace, and in the music of a woman who has seen more than most of us. She knows our secrets. She knows a way out. She knows. 

Sorcerer
Who is the master
A man and woman on a star stream
In the middle of a snow dream
Sorcerer
Show me the high life
Come over
Let me put you on ice

The wisdom unseen by men, the wisdom gleaned by women, and the wisdom discerned by those somewhere in between or beyond such limited labels is the wisdom of the ages. It changes with the passing of time, something we as humans don’t always want to admit or acknowledge, because that might require a change in our own beliefs. We don’t usually like to change our beliefs – it’s messy and makes us uneasy – but if you learn how to do that, you learn a bit of magic that will unlock hidden doors for as long as you keep your mind open. It’s the kind of magic that lights the darkest black ink nights…

All around black ink darkness
And who found lady from the mountains
All around black ink darkness
And who found lady from the mountains
Lady from the mountains

Lately I’ve felt the downward pull of time and age – two of many things over which a person has little to no control. Time and age – the sorcerer and the sorceress that lord their ways over us all. 

Whispers on the fall wind.

Slivers of hints written in the veins of leaves. 

No way to make it all make sense. 

Barely a wisp of a song, hardly a melody. 

Pricks in the silence.

Ripples on the water. 

The witch’s cry is silent.

Our fall playlist is finally being posted here – a little late perhaps, but I hope you find it worth the wait. It begins with songs that inspired the ‘Fade-to-Black’ theme, segues into a rollicking femininomenon section with a couple of disco moments, and brings us all back to black in the end. Click and listen, preferably in the order in which they appear. (Apologies, I’m an anal-retentive Virgo after all.)

Paint It Black – Westworld version

Desperation – Steppenwolf

For What It’s Worth – Stevie Nicks

Paint It Black – Rolling Stones

Edge of Seventeen – Stevie Nicks

You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real) – Sandra Bernhard

At Midnight – T Connection 

Gimme Gimme Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) – Abba

Hung Up – Madonna

Femininomenon – Chappell Roan

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart – Taylor Swift

Brave New Girl – Britney Spears

Super Graphic Ultra Modern Girl – Chappell Roan

Chemical Sunset – Orville Peck 

Back to Black – Oscar and the Wolf

Your Heart is as Black as Night – Melody Gardot

Demons in My Sleep – Peaky Blinders

Bacchanal from ‘Samson and Delilah’ -Camille Saint-Saëns

When It Rains It Pours – Twiddle

Welcome to the Black Parade – My Chemical Romance

Paint It Black – Cello version

One of my favorite pieces of music is the Bacchanal from the opera ‘Samson and Delilah’. I’m not sure why it became a favorite, because it brings back bad memories of all the stress and worry and competitive ickiness of my time in the Empire State Youth Orchestra. That it contains one of the more celebrated oboe solos is one reason for how stressful those passages once felt, and I remember the first time we read through it – I think I had the solo and totally massacred it. 

The orchestra raced ahead before I even knew where we were in the score, and I was left behind, eventually taking the second seat after tryouts. In truth, I probably had no business even being in the actual Empire State Youth Orchestra – and as much as I learned there, as much as the experience hardened and honed me, I wonder if it was worth the social anxiety and stress at that time in my life. It still haunts me, and I question whether that was the best thing to do to myself as a kid (not that I was given a choice in those early days) – and did it really prove the tipping point at getting me into all of the colleges to which I applied? I doubt I’ll ever know – and there’s no point in dwelling here. Instead, let’s revel in the music at hand, and allow it to fuel this fall’s reckoning… 

If you stick it out and wait until about the 7:00 mark, you’ll hear when things really begin to soar – and it is here where I take all the trauma of the past and turn it into something else – anger, rage, triumph, revenge – and a power I’m still discovering buried within. Spreading the wings of a silky caftan, with a rope of pearls to harness the universe’s available energy, it feels like a moment ripe for flight.

The music is a seduction and a celebration in one, entrancing with its sensuous oboe solo, and then setting the scene for the destruction of a temple. Sexual symbolism and blatant hedonism brilliantly collide in a meeting of the minds and bodies of opposing forces. Prepare the way for aural ecstasy and orgasmic, orgiastic might. 

Who knew that opera could be so gorgeously filthy? It’s a perfect treat for the fall season.