a beginning.

the spark before the flame. the inhale before the exhale. a moment’s peace, balanced on the edge of the unknown, and then tumbling forward, falling, plummeting down, eyes tight closed but catching glimpses all the same, flashes of recognition, but they’re gone too fast, like a torch thrown down a well, lighting everything but showing nothing.

a beginning.

a new world lays directly ahead, unformed and unimagined, but there. i can feel it. so much to say, to see, to show, to sing.

it begins like bartok smacking a xylophone, like monday songs began, a note, repeating, a lit match in a twilight cathedral, every revelation pointing to the universes left unseen. but the notes roll down the hill, and pick up others and soon it’s building, from less grows more, after months of separation, after a gallery of lonely portraits, a certainty arrives, a certainty that could unite the whole, the fragments assembling into a story, a book of stories, a library of books, a city of libraries, all unfolding real-time, all reflecting the same brutal truth, an army of blind men and africa’s largest elephant.

from certainty to singularity, an atom of thought, of possibility, a fission reaction, and the darkness, the shame, the loneliness explodes into the air, bursting free of this tender vacuum, the clenched heart of a frightened man, who for the first time knows a moment of freedom.

and the moment passes and he’s desperate to put it all back, lock it down safe and sound, he’d gladly live with that slow torture, that taunting pressure, acid digesting him one nerve at a time, he’d take it all back, the familiar comfort of deep dis-ease, but pandora’s heart lays open, and a world screams into existence, the in pours out.

i can’t catch my breath. the earth is rushing up to greet me. the night sky feels too close, i’m falling down a well, turning the flashlight this way and that, bracing for contact, bloated with regret.

now there are lights below. a city? a town? something in-between. sound fills my head. has it been there all along? volume swells from piano to triple forte, splintering the soundboard. where does it come from? inside or out? an infinite television turned to a dead channel, a hurricane sung basso profundo, god’s shower, and feelings crash over me, forcing me under, urgent and needful. i’ll be torn apart in another moment, how is it that i am not deaf, bulleting toward the earth, surprised to find myself praying, the words unfamiliar, the voice not mine, somehow spilling through the cataclysmic splashclatter, pressing to make contact, not a prayer, a song? a secret? or am i just imagining it? we all hear voices when the white noise is turned up loud enough, rorshach for the ears.

but no, it’s there. it’s definitely there. a thread, a single thread snaking out from the tapestry, and i reach for it, filtering the ocean of sound to taste a particular grain of salt, chipping away at a mountain of solid marble to carve out a single pawn, shoveling aside the ordinary in search of a miracle, and suddenly, words. a single voice, insignificant beside the infinite chorus, sublime beside the hungry void, and as the pavement rushes up to greet me, the voice whispers in my ear, don’t be scared, it only hurts for a moment.

and then everything goes dark.

a spark.

inhale.

a beginning.

this is the first straight love song i have written in a long while. i usually steer clear, but i just finished a wonderful book called “brooklyn” by the irish novelist colm toibin, and it left me with a romantic longing that i needed to work out through music.

the song fills in a point of view that was not fleshed out in the book, the boyfriend who was left behind, stricken with worry that his love would never return. thus the song.

the book is a work of art, with an economy of language and a psychological acuity worthy of shakespeare. at no time does the reader know what will happen on the next page, and when the whole plays out, a plotted structure is revealed that is subtle and deep. i was really moved and inspired by it. again, thus the song.

have to thank my mom for the recommendation. the lady knows good writing.

as a side note: i was asked by john a few weeks back how i feel about the process of writing music on a deadline. i’ll start with the downside: it makes my weekends a bit cramped, and with two kids running around full of life and inspiration, it can be a a drag at times to keep to my schedule.

that said, this project is the first time that i have felt that i was doing what i really wanted to do in music. i have always wrestled with the shoulds: i should play live, i should be more forceful when marketing my music. but when i really get in touch with what i actually like doing, it is writing songs and recording them. memorizing them is painful, playing them live is usually a self-conscious ordeal, but creating a song out of nothing, piecing together all the sections, healing a broken bridge, re-singing the ending until the cadence works, this is work that i love to do.

writing on a deadline forces me to see through projects that i would jettison, usually discovering in the last pass that a song i didn’t like now works, and usually unveils some place that i hadn’t been before.

they’re not all works of art, but they’re all a labor of love.

couldn’t get an original done as i was cranking out this year’s holiday song. since i have nothing original to offer, figured i’d share the results of my work - a cover of a cover, featuring my son and daughter on vocals. we’ve been doing this for the past six or seven years, and they never disappoint.

just as a side note, this song marks the intersection of two of my favorites: david bowie’s “hunky dory,” the album this version apes, and paul williams, who wrote the lyric. the bowie influence is probably obvious from other efforts, but paul williams is another favorite, particularly his work on the movie “phantom of the paradise.”

“phantom” is my answer to the icebreaker “what’s your favorite movie?” i admit that its obscurity helps it to the top, but it blends so many of my favorite themes into a single movie, a genuinely comic, genuinely tragic horror movie that spoofs the music business, and has a great soundtrack by mr. williams. it even features an intro by rod serling. its romantic and nerdy and smart and very well executed. a pretty good description of my musical output of the past decade.

so where was i? right, the holiday song. so “fill your heart” was originally on the tiny tim debut album, which makes it all the more perfect a choice for bowie. i had heard the song a thousand times without ever listening to the lyric, in my end to end delight with “hunky dory,” this song was always the light and bouncy segue from “quicksand” (another favorite) and “andy warhol.” when i finally listened to teh lyrics i was blown away by the mix of profundity and whimsy, like a hippie existentialist. i guess that’s as good a description of the bowie of “hunky dory.”

as i strained this year to come up with a good tune to cover (”this will be our year” and “pennies from heaven were the last two) the song popped in my head and seemed perfect. it was fun to do, and seemed a nice new year’s message.

well, that’s a bit more than i intended writing. it’s easier to write about someone else’s song than your own i guess. not nearly as much time spent hiding all the elements that were stolen. the whole thing is stolen.

enjoy.

btw: my resolution is to release something every week in 2010. so expect some improved consistency, a few more of knick knacks from the family vault, and probably one or two 25 second tunes.

happy new year. let’s hope it’s a good one. without any fear…

after last week’s breakthrough to the brighter side, i was excited to keep my eye on the positive side and deliver some more upbeat music. but when i heard that vic chestnutt had committed suicide, i just couldn’t get it off my mind, and figured i should pay tribute.

i only have a single album of his, “about to choke,” and it comes out at the strangest times. i feel like i’ve rediscovered the guy a dozen times. if you haven’t heard him, it’s something like elliott smith consoling willie nelson in a disjointed voice with a twist of cat stevens in there. at once achingly sincere, and unflinchingly spare. he calls himself a subrealist on “choke.” who am i to disagree?

my wife and i caught him on “fresh air” a few weeks back, we were driving to see richard price tell interesting stories, and terry gross was not shying away from his past suicide attempts, and he discussed a new song that he described as celebrating his letting go of the urge to kill himself. less than a month later, it seems he changed his mind.

struck me similarly to elliott smith in that after a lifetime of music that stared into the abyss, it seemed a sad but not surprising end. and both sealed the deal when they seemed to be on the upswing. perhaps we are most vulnerable when we are not looking over our shoulder.

the song is not meant to be an homage, there are plenty of nods: the country styling, the uncomplicated melody, and some experimentation with free verse. but his music is all about his voice, and i am not much at impersonations. it feels good to sing quietly. also fun to play a guitar for a change. i believe it marks the first non-piano monday song.

suicide is something i’ve thought about a lot, partly out of a deep morbid streak, partly out of an occasional angry sadness. i usually shy away from it as a musical subject, as it is so easy to fall into a kind sophomoric self-pity, that works only with loud guitars.

so the fun starts next week.

see you next year…

with number 35 i’m taking a break from my manic suite and breaking many of the rules of monday songs, perhaps retiring them permanently. the song has overdubbed instruments, vocal harmonies, and has nothing sad about it. it’s the most fun i’ve had doing a song in a few months.

friday was my daughter maude’s birthday, and she asked me to write a song for her. she actually asked back in august. she’s quite a planner. so last week i put together a song for her. from the first thought it was clear there would be a more complex arrangement; more room for enthusiasm. it wasn’t meant as a monday song at all. but when i completed it, it seemed like something i wanted to share. she didn’t have a problem with it being a monday song.

the song is a celebration of my multi-faced and mercurial daughter. she’s a great kid, and pouring my feelings about her into a song was a real treat. the verse is a fairly straightforward children’s song, with a more rock chorus where i banged on the piano and wurly. the bridge was particularly fun to do with the wurly and background vocals being improvised. reminded me how much fun it is to do overdubs and experiment a bit.

most of the lyrics are pretty straightforward. with the exception of the reference to pumpkin seeds. on halloween a couple years back, we were carving pumpkins and maude volunteered to pull out the seeds for roasting. she started into work while we carved and cleaned up and moved on to other things. about an hour later we returned to find maude still pulling out pumpkin seeds, having meticulously removed every seed from three pumpkins worth of insides. we asked her if she wanted to stop, since we had more than enough seeds. she said she wasn’t finished. with concentration skills like that, grad school is gonna be a snap…

i’m not going to shift into 100% multi-tracking, but i’m not going to resist it either. whatever seems like the most fun. even in pursuit of the downbeat.

not sure

with number 34 i begin the second year of monday songs. i hope to be a bit more consistent in 2010, in songwriting, in many things…

another in the “mind on fire” cycle. mostly speaks for itself, in that it says very little, and suggests less. and more. the clarifying madness of mania  allows you, a confirmed genius, to knit together opposites, painting abstracts that reverse reality, and at the same time capture reality more succinctly than has been done before. at least for the moment. then in another moment you move on to the next idea, the next creation. if there is a central motif, it is enthusiasm verging on grandiosity. that and grandiosity.

it says a lot that the more i tipped over into the deep end, the less i needed to capture anything on a page or on tape. i filled dozens and dozens of notebooks in the weeks leading up to the deep end, went through three in an evening before truly diving in, but when in mid air, it became obvious that the act of capturing the moment only pollutes the moment. the need to document, to journal, to record, born of a fear of dying unsung, slips out the door with the other fears, like the one of walking naked in a public place. as you let go, deeply let go of inhibition, self-consciousness, and ultimately sanity, you let go of all those imperfect representations of the world as you captured it. you’re trading them in for a permanent lifetime of living in the moment, where there is no need to capture time. every moment celebrates itself infinitely.

still, this piece isn’t quite from the brain-fried zenith of the experience, but more the navel gazing that comes at a down time. chuckling at the counterweights and juxtapositions that tie most mortals down, as you knit together fabric and flesh and understand more deeply than ever, just how little we can understand. as with socrates, this is the division between the normal and the majestic. beginnings are endings. life is death. a pearl is a used cone of coffee grounds.

i should mention that the life “you can only wake when you’ve fallen asleep” is a lift from a song i wrote in my walrus days (mid-90s) called “wake.” i have been thinking of doing a version for monday songs. it is one of the many songs i wrote before losing my mind that accurately explores the experience.

number 33. jesus’s age when he languished on the cross. the age i was when i slipped over the edge. i was well aware of the jesus connection. in fact, i had a crucifixion of my own. but that is for another monday.

the escalation to psychosis took some days, even some weeks. the first clear spark was on the thursday before. friday the ropes were cut and the balloon started to rise, but only on monday did i reach the part of the atmosphere where the air gets thin. it was becoming impossible not to notice i was cracking up, at least from the outside looking in. from the inside the bliss just kept coming in one orgasmic wave after another, bringing surges of emotion and clarity and insight and understanding, some of it tilted, much of it rooted in subtlety and truth.

the true madness lasted three days: monday, tuesday, wednesday. when lived these days lasted weeks. life and death came within minutes of each other. mounting olympus for my first real view of the world. but as the song describes, at a certain altitude, the truths you uncover are often polluted by simplification, making connections between the unconnected to celebrate the hidden webs behind the visible.

monday i started off high, having the first real feelings of transcendence. that night i openly wept in the lobby of a movie theater, after i thought i had lost my wife forever. tuesday had the humming tunnel vision of an minor acid trip, but this was reality. instead of meeting my wife, i wandered around the berkeley campus, reliving my college years, familiar professors stepping out on cue. my wife near lost her mind. and i thought i’d found mine.

when i got home, my wife took me by the hand and drove me to the kaiser psychiatric wing. i thought she was going mad. to set her straight i let her in on a secret: we were the next level of evolution and that greater minds from outer space were headed toward earth for a spiritual communion.

that night, after some failed experiments with boundaries, i was strapped to a table “so i wouldn’t hurt myself,” arms out, the age of christ, someone had a sense of humor. after being pumped full of reality, i fell asleep many hours later, on the verge of finally letting go of my self, dying, in order to truly live.

wednesday morning i was crushed. from the highest high, to the lowest low. like a penny thrown from the empire state building, ending up underground, from galileo to the nut house. and when the doctor asked me if i still believed in magic, i lied and said No.

three days is not a lot of time. but it can be a full life, with a death thrown into the bargain. when seen from afar, details fall away, and all that is left is a sad arc of profundity and shame. joy and delusion. everything and nothing. with the scales tilting toward nothing.

manic depression is always portrayed by a kinetic actor balancing energy and speed.

but there is another mood that is just as prevalent: the racing mind and quiet body. thinking done with teeth gritted, grinding and grinding.

at the height of my heights, i went on a walk where i was consumed by a tidal wave of spiritual insight, an almost audible opening sound, feeling like scatman caruthers shining.

i was 33. jesus’ age. feeling like everywhere i walked would one day be enshrined as a holy ground, a destination for the pilgrimage bound. thoughts were flying in so fast, they left a breeze. a single-minded focus on truth and existence, in the shadow of a certainty that was growing omnipresent. like acid with your sanity still intact.

i was locked in the state of falling in love. a deep passionate romance, but not focused on a person. just pure love in the abstract, such that everywhere i turned there was a new rush of excitement, of clarity, of understanding, of communion.

a sad outcome of this experience is that years later it has left me with a sadness when i get those moments of humming awareness. if i get too happy, i might be getting sick. i was already a pessimist. it didn’t need reinforcement.

parts of the melody and the harmonic structure owe a debt to the suicide note section of “thanksgiving” (monday song # 29). seemed fitting as i saw sullivan’s son as mentally ill and with a manic flush when he wrote his last words. not sad, but enthusiastic about the dangerous next step. it’s a lowly thing to rip yourself off. but it’s a victimless crime.

scatman caruthers in his bed in florida receiving danny’s shining. but with a smile, and no elevator blood.

until next week.

this week we embark on open-ended exploration of the height of heights, and the depths of despair.

wait a minute, that was what “connect the dots” was all about. minus the height of heights.

ten years ago today (september 21, 1999) i lost my mind and spent the better part of a week in the psych ward at herrick hospital (berkeley). the medication that was meant to make me feel well, did a whole lot more, and i exploded into a state of florid mania, with all the messianic fervor and high-mindedness that usually accompanies it.

over the coming weeks i will piece together a song cycle, in no particular order, that seeks to capture some of the flavor, the highs and lows and super-highs that i experienced. the piece is called “mind on fire” and this is the first entry.

breaking with the tradition of monday songs, this is the first “old” song that i have included. this was written in 1999, a month or two before embarking on my mystical journey. i have a handful of others from that period. so i wil include those,  as well to writing some new tunes, the goal of monday songs.

i should also call out that a number of songs i have already posted fit into this suite: birthday (part one) (#3), emily jane (#11), swept away (#12), the start of something big (#6) all deal with this same theme.

so sit back and relax (something i was incapable of during my flirtation with infinity), and get ready for a flood of songs on the topic of release, and uncertainty, and religiousness, and enthusiasm, and otherworldliness.

these songs are dedicated to my wife kristin, who suffered through the deep existential pain and annhilating anxiety of checking her husband into the mental ward. not an experience i recommend.

this song features the special blend of bombastic entitlement and awakening insight that defined the final days of my ascension. a spiritual wrestling match between buddhist no-soul, and skyscraper confidence.

enjoy.

thus ends the cycle “connect the dots.”

i have loved “jesus christ superstar” since elementary school. after the crucifixion, there is a final number called john 19:41. i listened for years without ever inspecting what lay there, i assumed he got sucked up to heaven in a brilliant white light.

but instead, john 19:41 describes a new tomb in a garden where jesus died and where he was first to be laid to rest. no assent to heaven, no miracles, just a man being laid to rest. in some way the lack of magic made the whole piece more powerful.

i was going for a similar type of related ending. the world goes on. things fade out and fade back in. a little ken burns piano and its hard to tell whether it is a farewell or a hello.

next week i start “mind on fire.” i’ve been waiting to do this one for a few years. i may even bring a few old demos back into the light, stretching the rules of monday songs; but if you haven’t heard them, how do you know they’re not new.

i hope to stay on the next theme for a while. mental illness, psychedelia and self-consciousness. what could be better?