part one: play me.
a song that you can play on an instrument
Like many people my age I grew up in a time when music and art were two offerings during the regular school day, albeit still ones that would often feel like recess-lite. In elementary school art would have glitter, glue, and gray blocks of clay and music was code for recorders and piano led vocal instruction of some sort. I listened to far different music outside of school then in. Even then the music felt childish and pedestrian.
After the six month elective sampling during sixth grade we were supposed to select our track, whether it was art, music, or some third one I can't for the life of me recall. It was probably back alley smoking and impregnation 101. I liked art class, but the teacher was a bitch to me and I really hadn't honed my drawing or painting skills in the way that the top two or three prodigies did, so I picked band. No one went in with any fore-knowledge. It seemed to put us all on equal unsteady footing.
It was the eighties, so the saxophone seemed like an obvious fit to me. As awkward and insulated as I was at the time, I still wanted to pick something that might be hot with the ladies. If it was good enough for a Mickey Rourke movie and Baker Street then god dammit it was going to be good enough for me. I rarely liked any of the musical selections. I grabbed songbooks from the public library full of pop hits and even had a Best of 1987 collection for sax that saw some play until I started to realize that the echoing and honking of mistakes and learning alto sax from my upstairs bedroom was irritating my family.
I wouldn't practice at home very much after that.
But music has always been in my heart. I would pump our harmonium (aka small pipe organ) around the holidays, playing what turned out being some of the easiest music around. From this I essentially taught myself piano, or at least a vague sense of it. It's been nearly twenty years since I dropped out of band and quit playing the sax and probably a dozen or so since I tried piano. I tried to learn other instruments too, but evidently to no avail.
That being said, I don't know if I can reasonably play anything on an instrument anymore. With the loss of that part of me, I have strengthened any number of other skills, artistic and otherwise. Maybe with some sheet music reminders I could play a few bars of Angels We Have Heard on High or the excruciating Indiana Jones theme song that was our halftime show in the ninth grade.
Then again, maybe not.
part two: chop sticks.
a song that you wish you could play
I wish I could play guitar.
I tried to learn on a few occasions. At one point I felt hindered by my left-handedness, because no one else in the room was hexed in the same fashion. This was before I started to fully embrace my ambidextrous tendencies and ability to express different things with varying halves of myself.
If I could play guitar I would be able to be one of those people who could have an acoustic guitar sitting idly by when the whole gang is gathered around a campfire. It could be Indigo Girls and John Denver until sun up! Then again that guy is often a douche bag. Why is it that so many people who can play an instrument like that always seem to have this holier than thou attitude? Not all of them, mind you. I know people who can create music that aren't, but so many are, however.
We all have gifts to share. I have often wished mine to be the ability to hold a guitar and make more than racket emote from it. For those who can't the world has created Rock Band and Guitar Hero. Sure, I have had great fun with those, but to a point they are glorified air guitar. I see the romance in the instrument, though. Writing a poetic serenade for the love of your life or soothing the baby to sleep with its soft vibrating hum.
Instead I have words and image. And a recently discovered voice. And who knows what else.
part three: sweetest perfection.
a song that you wish you had written
I don't write music. I have tried. When I was a kid I would scroll out lyrics to theoretical songs, always pounding out ideas of how the other instruments would join in, leaving space for unforgiving drums and the timely and consummate guitar solo. These songs ranged from love songs to protest songs to completely esoteric babblings that sounded like pop songs to me. When I actually learned to read music I tried to write some melodies, but I became instantly bored with the process and really grew respect for blues and jazz musicians who could just jam off the cuff.
As I turned my guise more and more toward film and the creation therein, I became very envious of great writing and clever ideas. I went through all of the trials of any burgeoning creative, feeling threatened by the greatness of others and seeing only the paleness of self. I got over that concept over time and began to recognize that no one would ever assemble their ideas in quite the way I did and nor would I do like others, so what would be the point of seeing competition where there is collective.
So, I think the concept of wishing to have written a song, at least for a songwriter, could have similar dizzying effects. Or there is also the lighter thought that it could just spotlight one's fix on what makes for a great composition. I have many favorite songs. There are songs I like because of the way they make me feel, the texture of the craft behind it, the intelligible lyrics that overshadow the elementary melody, and on and on. There's just not enough space for all of that today.
Instead I will put the song that the iPod shuffled to on my way home from work last night and I was instantly gratified of its sheer existence. It has a complicated melody, beautiful lyrics, and a dark spirit with a positive intent and is indeed one of my favorite songs:
KING OF PAIN
There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday
There's a black cat caught in a high tree top
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain
There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's my soul up there
It's the same old thing as yesterday
It's my soul up there
There's a black hat caught in a high tree top
It's my soul up there
There's a flag pole rag and the wind won't stop
It's my soul up there
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain
There's a fossil that's trapped in a high cliff wall
It's my soul up there
There's a dead salmon frozen in a waterfall
It's my soul up there
There's a blue whale beached by a springtide's ebb
It's my soul up there
There's a butterfly trapped in a spider's web
It's my soul up there
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain
There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out
There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt
There's a rich man sleeping on a golden bed
There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread
King of pain
There's a red fox torn by a huntsman's pack
It's my soul up there
There's a blue winged gull with a broken back
It's my soul up there
There's a little black spot on the sun today
It's the same old thing as yesterday
I have stood here before inside the pouring rain
With the world turning circles running round my brain
I guess I'm always hoping that you'll end this reign
But it's my destiny to be the king of pain
King of pain
King of pain
King of pain
I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain
{fades}
I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain
I'll always be king of pain
I think Pop would be delighted in those pictures :) maybe we can learn acoustic together one day, we make beautiful music together as it is.
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