Perception, Imagination, and Experience: “Stairway to Heaven” and Melodies Unheard

Image CC BY SA 2.0 by Y2kcrazyjoker4 via Flickr

I didn’t hear “Stairway to Heaven” until I was about 18. I’m not sure how that happened, exactly. I was a huge classic rock fan, and musician to boot. I found Zeppelin when I was about sixteen, and had listened extensively to their first and second albums (which I had on vinyl and had copied over to tape). I remember standing in the kitchen at our house in Massachusetts, cooking something (as usual), and my dad telling me to take a break and listen to the solo in “Good Times, Bad Times” because it was one of the greatest in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. He was right, of course. But how I never made the leap to other albums, I’ll never know. It’s sort of like loving the Rolling Stones but never hearing “Paint It, Black” or “Satisfaction.”

But “Stairway” eluded me. I was a Beatles fan, and primarily listened to them during those teen years, only dabbling occasionally into other rock albums if I found them at yard sales or scraped together enough money to buy a casette (the only Beatles albums I ever bought on CD were the Anthologies). I didn’t like radio much. The only reference I had to “Stairway to Heaven” was in the movie Wayne’s World (a movie which I still know by heart), when Wayne goes to the guitar store and starts playing the opening notes only to be pointed to the sign: “No Stairway? Denied!” (They’re actually not the opening notes, and more on that here. No wonder I was confused.)

Image via Amazon

So, in my mind, “Stairway to Heaven” had a completely different feel. It was Zeppelin, so I assumed it was pretty gritty. I thought there had to be some blistering solo, lots of drums, heavy vocals complete with panting and Robert Plant’s signature orgasmic keen. It’s like, in some alternate universe, there’s this song called “Stairway to Heaven” that I made up that, well clearly, is virtually nothing like the actual song.

I know where I was when I first heard the song. I was at a computer. I believe I was listening to an early iTunes radio station (as music got easier to access, so, too, it got harder to avoid). The song was introduced, and I remember thinking: “Okay! Here goes!” and then… wait, what?

“Stairway to Heaven” might be one of the most recognized songs in the history of rock ‘n’ roll, but having avoided it for almost twenty years makes my experience completely different. Since this was before the huge popularization of the internet, I never searched for lyrics. I didn’t know there were Lord of the Rings references. I had no idea how gentle and emotive Plant’s voice was, nor how magnificent the solo during the bridge would be (and yet restrained and longing and perfect); the rhythm section is crazy good, and the whole song peters out in echoing longing like nothing I’d ever heard before. It was an experience, to say the least.

But it wasn’t that song that was in my head. That song, like so many of our imagined realities, doesn’t actually exist. Or maybe it might someday. Maybe on another plane, some alien with a space-guitar is playing the notes of that song. I might never hear it, but it somehow exists. Even though it doesn’t.

This is all to say I’ve been thinking a great deal about perception, imagination, and experience. As writers and creators, we are a mishmash of these three facets. Just because we experience something doesn’t mean we perceive it; and just because we perceive it, it doesn’t mean it is as we imagined. When writing characters lately, I’ve been working very hard to think about these facets in their stories. Both are first person narratives, and both are telling their stories. Kate in Rock Revival is writing her story down for her daughter; Joss in Watcher of the Skies is telling his story to Maddie.

But their experiences are not mine. And even if, like Kate, they share my experiences, their perceptions aren’t the same. And their reactions, depending on how they imagined things going or not going, also differ greatly. What might be old and busted to me, may not be to them. Joss starts out the book as a godling in a man’s body, unable to tell clothing apart from skin. But he learns quickly, even if there are still some holes in his learning. He’s gifted to understand human emotion on a deep level, but that often gets him in trouble–just because you perceive something, doesn’t mean you should mention it (which he has a problem doing). And Kate, for all her tough talk, is an active alcoholic for the first third of the book. And even though it almost kills her, she still doesn’t really perceive it correctly. She’s unreliable, especially when it comes to her own faults (aren’t we all).

But back to those unheard melodies. Yes, I’m bringing it around to Keats again. There’s two stanzas in “Ode on a Grecian Urn” that talk precisely about what I mean about that unheard version of “Stairway to Heaven”:

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

The stories he’s making up in his head are better. All that panting, excitement.

That’s not just the scene on the urn, that’s Robert Plant! That’s my song. The one that doesn’t exist. It’s also every book I’ve yet to write. It’s every song and melody I’ve yet to play. And no, it’s unlikely that it’s ever going to be as good as the one imagined. But, with each successive attempt, it gets better. It gets closer. That’s what makes art and imagination so mind-blowing. We are pulling something from nothing, bringing art into the world through our eyes and hands. And nothing will ever be just like it.

And because it’s so awesome, here’s Heart covering said song recently. I can’t love this more if I tried.

Thoughts On John Lennon

Image by Poniol60 – public domain, via Wikipedia

Yesterday was the anniversary of John Lennon’s death. 32 years have passed since that fateful walk, when the world was forever robbed of a mad, genius, restless, beautiful soul. I don’t remember that day: I was in utero.

I won’t proclaim that John was a flawless visionary, because he wasn’t a perfect man. He made some staggeringly bad choices in his life, he struggled with horrible addictions, and I do believe he walked that fragile line between madness and visionary for most of his life. His youth was marred by loss and pain, but he quickly turned that around to something amazing. I think because the Beatles are so steeped in modern myth sometimes it’s hard to step back and realize just how special they were. When Lennon met McCartney, it really was a magic moment, but it was also the meeting of two young men who’d had their hearts broken early on and found, together, that they could make music like no one else on the planet.

I’ve always had an easier time with McCartney. His music, his life, it’s simpler to understand on a variety of levels. He’s always been my favorite Beatle, and while I do think the world’s most perfect song is possibly the Harrison number “Something” I think, over all, McCartney was the stronger of the songwriters. As most Beatles fans know, the Lennon/McCartney moniker was more of a catchall as the band went through the years. And by ’65, you can already hear where they’re diverging. Sure, there’s famous collaborations (the echoes in “It’s Getting Better” were from John, for instance, and the middle eight in “A Day in the Life” is all McCartney) but their work goes in very different directions once they break out of the that early pop phase.

When it comes to “getting” Lennon, I always come closest during the ’65-’66 years. It’s my favorite period for the Beatles music, anyway (not that I don’t like what came after, but these are always my go to albums) but I think in part that’s because Lennon’s also at his strongest. He’s not yet met Yoko. He’s not yet divorced from Cynthia (although their relationship is anything but peaceful). His songwriting has that tinge of strangeness to it, but hasn’t yet gone down the route of hard-drug influence or Yoko influence. You can still hear how rooted he is to the influences of his youth, from a musical standpoint, and yet he’s breaking free as a lyricist of his own right. Maybe it’s the LSD that came in ’66 that changed him completely, I don’t know. What came later was beautiful, but it was never as fragile or innocent. The difference between Rubber Soul and Revolver are pretty staggering, especially with Lennon’s contributions, yet they both hold that last bastion of youth and wonder that I think, for the most part, are lost later on.

Take “It’s Only Love” for instance, a song which Lennon stated he hated because the lyrics, in his mind, weren’t very good. It’s from the album Help! (which, as John had said, was a literal cry for help). Sure, the lyrics aren’t exactly Grammy material (quoth McCartney: “Sometimes we didn’t fight it if the lyric came out rather bland on some of those filler songs like ‘It’s Only Love’. If a lyric was really bad we’d edit it, but we weren’t that fussy about it, because it’s only a rock ‘n’ roll song. I mean, this is not literature.”), but there’s a sense of brokenness and helplessness that, combined with the pining melody, always gets me.

It’s only love and that is all
Why should I feel the way I do?
It’s only love, and that is all
But it’s so hard loving you
Yes it’s so hard loving you, loving you

No, not literature. Not in any sense of the word. He’s just describing that alienating, suffering feeling he gets from being in love and not being able to do a thing about it. Petrarch was on to that ages ago. But John had a way with progressions, taking something relatively simple and twisting it just so with an unexpected resolve or a minor chord or a melody that flips at the last second. In “It’s Only Love” it’s the second time he sings the title words in the chorus–going from the B flat to the G7 rather than to the Am–that take a potentially weak song and make it something more. Give me chills, every time. Melancholy, longing, frustration… it’s all there, in the melody straining against the chords. And it’s brilliant.

And with Rubber Soul he comes to the forefront of the entire song list with “In My Life” which, I don’t need to tell you, has become one of the most often sung graduation/wedding/mar mitzvah tunes on rotation. But that doesn’t take away from the sheer genius of it. Unlike “It’s Only Love” John packs a double punch with lyrics both haunting and heartbreaking, and the music to back it up. (Of course, like much, there’s some dispute: John claims that McCartney only worked on the harmonies and middle eight, while McCartney claims to have written all the music and not the lyrics–personally, I think John’s recollection is likely right. The progressions are a little too off to be just McCartney.) Dealing with the passing of childhood and innocence, it may be the very song that musically marks the moment of John’s transition from the young man crying “Help!” to the one steeped in mysticism and drug addiction.

I can’t overstate the Beatles’ influence in my writing and in my life. It’s quite possible I’d be an entirely different person if not for their music. And the ’65-’66 years got me through (literally) a really difficult high school experience. I couldn’t have cared less about grunge when I had the Beatles. And John’s struggles, especially the ones he wrote in music, spoke to me more during that time than any of the rest of the catalog. Which isn’t to say that “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” doesn’t make me burst into tears every time I try to sing it, but still. John was a man of many faces, many lives, even though he lived such a very short time. The older I get the more of an appreciation I have for him and for his accomplishments, but the more I see him as a man tortured by the complications brought on by our very existence. What would he have done if he’d have lived longer, finally having conquered most of his demons? We’ll never know, I’m afraid. But that he’s inspired thousands upon thousand of musicians and given life to two words (Imagine, and Peace) I think would make him, at last, content.

Rock Revival: Draft Zero

Composition. Image by Natania Barron. CC BY SA 3.0

I’m very happy at the moment. This weekend I finished the first (zero) draft of Rock Revival. Now, I know, I’ve written books before. I’ve figured out “the method” or whatever of “being a writer” and all that jazz, sure. Except, since having my surgery in 2010 I hadn’t actually finished a novel. Yeah, there was that pregnancy thing that accounted for nine months. But about three weeks after the baby girl was born, I started Rock Revival to my own surprise. I mean, I had other books to write. Speculative books. Good books, surely! Yet, for whatever reason, it’s the story that wanted to be told first (in spite of my attempts to write other things).

I’ve had to change the entire way I write. Much in the same way I can’t play guitar, I can’t just sit at a computer or a laptop. All those great writing tips for busy folk and moms and whatnot? Yeah, not much help. I can’t take my writing somewhere else; I can’t write by hand. I can dictate some, but I’m still learning how to do that. And since my surgery, I hadn’t been able to adapt that into any personal longterm projects.

So for this book, I had to retrain myself how to write. Now it’s not about numbers, it’s about endurance. And, at last, I’ve figured it out. In some ways it’s really the NaNoWriMo approach. I try to clock 200 words a day, on the short end (the “no-matter-what-is-happening-do-or-die” number) and 1,000 on regular days. And now, four months later, I have a book. No to say I was perfect every step of the way, because I wasn’t; but all in all it was pretty damned successful.

The book ended up a little more than 70K, but it’s already up to 72K after deleting and rewriting a bunch over the weekend. I tend to do a Draft Zero Re-read immediately after finishing, and it helps me tie the end to the beginning more solidly. I had a lot of epiphanies toward the end of the book and it’s bee really satisfying to go in and tidy things. There’s one scene I’m dreading writing because it’s really rough but essential to the story. Then, once I’m finished with the DZR I’ll be putting everything into Pages and doing a major edit. Then comes more writing, filling in the blanks–interviews, Wikipedia articles, Tweet exchanges. Seriously fun.

But that’s not all. I mean, I see now how important this book has been to me, personally. Not only did it help me prove something to myself that I’d been living in fear about (not being able to do this again) but it helped me remember something that I’d been neglecting a while: my love of music. For a long time my dream was to be a singer/songwriter. It was an encompassing dream that I gave up only when life got too busy and I said things like, “It’s too competitive” and “Who has time?” Not that I’ve ever stopped playing music, but it became a monthly thing rather than a daily thing.

These days, I’ve been steeped in music. I even wrote a song for the book, the first I’ve written in almost five years. And it’s even good. I’m not saying I’m changing courses to become a rock star, but I am recognizing that it’s a much bigger part of me than I’d let on for a while. I played my dad’s Gibson 339 this weekend, through an honest to goodness amplifier, and hot-damn if it didn’t feel amazing.

This has never, to my knowledge, happened before. A book has never given me something so lasting and profound in return. And I’m grateful for that.

Anyway. The baby is asleep and there’s a thousand things I need to do before picking up my son, but I wanted to take a minute and smile and pat myself on the back. That elation will only last as long as that big red edit marker lays dormant. I’ll be singing a different tune in a few weeks, perhaps.

Interview with Jesse McLaren, rock journalist:

Tell us about your relationship with Tom. How did it shape your music?
Kate Styx: There’s not much to say that hasn’t already been said. I mean, I’m pretty transparent in what I write, and you don’t have to listen to much of our catalogue to hear what I have to say on the matter. I don’t usually talk too much about it, y’know? To me, it’s a short story. We were together a while, it didn’t work out, but we’ve both moved on. He’s a dear friend, one of the best things in my life.

You’ve said that “Lost and Loving” best reflects your relationship. Why is that?
KS: (laughs) I was really mad when I wrote that. We’d just broken up for good, and he was so calm about the whole damned thing. Me? I was a mess. But that song just sort of fell in my lap one night when I was feeling really stupidly sorry for myself. I had a working demo in two hours and woke James up at 4am to get his take on it. He loved it, tweaked it a bit, and we laid down the track two weeks later. Tom really is like a river, as hackneyed as that reference might be. I could tell he was sorry we’d broken up, but he just kept moving on. I wasn’t so good at it. I don’t like to talk too many details, but I still feel that same way in the song. I probably always will.

That was your second number one hit. Do you feel strange having to revisit that raw emotion every time you play live?
KS: After a while, it just becomes a song. Sure, I bet if we broke up and didn’t play for twenty years and got together again, it’d have some meaning again. You know, like the way Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham did with “The Chain” during their reunion special. The air is charged, man. The way they look at each other. I think that’s part of going through something like this with someone and then having to continue working with them. Time is weird. Distance is important. Perspective changes. But I don’t think you ever stop loving someone entirely. You share something special with them. The first few times we played the song live we had to rewrite the background vocals for Kurt so he could sing them. I couldn’t manage it. But now I don’t really think about it.

You famously ousted Sara Plummer and brought aboard your childhood friend Kurt Bastian to replace her. There’s been a lot of speculation about that. Care to set the record straight?
KS: There’s nothing to be set straight. Listen, all my music life I’ve been collaborating with bassists. Before Sara, there was Kurt. When Sara left—and she did leave—I needed someone I could trust, musically and personally. Kurt’s been playing music all his life, and he’s solid. After all the drama of the last few years we really wanted someone strong to root us through the last album and tour. It wasn’t a hard decision to make. But he’s with us for the long haul, and we’re excited to see where we go.

He’s said some unflattering things about James Vayne in the press. How do you respond to that as his friend?
KS: [pauses to think] Listen, I’m not here to gossip about my bandmates or apologize for what they say or pick apart their motivations. They are who they are. No, we don’t always get along. Yes, sometimes we say stuff we don’t mean. But in the end, it’s the music that matters. And right now, we’re as good as we’ve been in years. Ever, really. I think our earlier dysfunction was keeping us from our potential, and now we’ve moved on and we’re making progress. We’re growing.

Tell us something about the new album.
KS: Well, we’re taking a much slower pace, for one. The first three were sort of done at the speed of light. We had crazy schedules and all these big early successes. Not to say we’re not thankful for the fans or the support, but it’s been taxing on all of us. So we wanted to really take the time with this album this time around to do something that takes us back to our roots. I’m really happy with where we’re at right now.

Have the Revivals settled down? You and your bandmate Tom have made some intriguing headlines in the past, especially Tom’s battle with drugs.
KS: Tom’s doing better. He really is. I’ve had my wild moments, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. It is rock and roll, after all.

The middle of Octember.

Image by Natania Barron. CC BY SA 2.0

These -ember months do seem to pile up rather quickly, don’t they? Last week I went away to the West Coast, spending some time with family. I don’t know what it is about me, but every single time I make a trip like that I somehow think I’m impervious to jet lag. The truth is, I’m terrible with jet lag. Eastbound is nuts. It’s almost been a week and I still haven’t acclimated, not even close. So the last few nights I’ve been up well past 2 AM, then up again at 3 AM with the little girl. So lucidity is not exactly my strong point at the moment.

Anyway, in spite of all that I’ve still managed to find the time to write. I’ve had to give up on the novella, half because the novel won’t leave me alone and half because I know I can’t give at the time that it deserves. I hate having to say no about something, to walk away. But that’s one of the realities of being a grown-up! You really have to learn how to manage your time. Or else nothing gets done. I spent the bulk of yesterday working on taxes and putting together a family budget. I much would have preferred to do something creative. But thankfully, even though it was late, I got my thousand words written.

This past weekend we visited the coast, where my in-laws live. On the ride home I had a chance to speak to my husband about the novel and some of the frustrations I’ve been going over in my head. At first, I really thought the love story was going to be central to the book. But then it sort of fizzled. It’s a whole lot less about falling in love, and a whole lot more about letting yourself fall in love. The relationships in the book don’t define Kate, she isn’t better because she’s dating or not dating. She’s not a romantic. As she says in the last scene I wrote last night, she’s gotten to the middle of her 30s without having a relationship that lasted longer than a year. And at the end of the book instead of jumping head over heels, she just meets someone that for the first time she can see herself staying with. Michael helped reiterate what I already knew: the book isn’t about romance and squishiness. It’s about music and confidence and overcoming the obstacles preventing Kate from being true to herself.

Anyway, the book is nearing the end. It’s almost at 70K and that’s without the supplementary articles, emails, conversations, and snippets that are going in later. Likely it’ll bring the size up another 10K once it’s done. I was dreaming about an interactive app. Cart, horse, etc.

Kate spends the first half trying to get over Tom, who she briefly had a thing with–but after years of pining for him. He gets born again. They both, for the mean time, beat addiction. I think I like this scene the best. They’re in Paris, about to go on stage, and for the first time they actually sit down and talk about how hard it is to move beyond, to tour without drugs and to face the people they used to be.

He sighed, looking down at our twined hands. “It’s hard. It’s… I mean, I want to be able to let go. To let God take care of it, to make me new. You understand that more than anyone, I think, even though you’re not… exactly practicing.”

That was a mild way of putting it.

“I know what you mean, at least,” I said.

“I just… do the shadows ever go away?” he asked. “Ah, shit. You’re the last person I should ask, considering what you’ve gone through.”

“We’re a pair,” I said. “But in answer to your question, I don’t think so. I don’t think we can ever rid ourselves of the shadows. We just have to learn to live with them. Eventually, maybe—hopefully—they just become part of the furniture after a while. You’re not struggling to stay in the light every damned day like some strung out vampire. You wake up one morning and, for the first time, you don’t think about it.”

“And if I fail?”

“You can always start again. But, and I can speak from experience, it’ll be harder. It’s like starting from level one all over again in Super Mario Brothers. No extra lives. No save state.” That was, perhaps, the best metaphor I could have ever given him.

He perked up a bit, his eyes getting a mischievous glint to them. Forget that it was also his “I’m horny and I’m about to jump you” look. It was still endearing. I had to battle a thousand memories and haunted strains of songs I’d written about him, pining away like some lovesick teenager. I hated how long I’d taken to let him know how I felt, and hated even more that we’d never manage to get together. Not really.

Our was not a love of the ages, that’s for sure. I was pretty much at my worst when I was with him, and likewise for him. At the time, moderation just wasn’t in our vocabularies.

We walked slowly back to the venue, his arm around me.

“There is something I noticed,” he said as we rounded the corner and the breeze picked up. “About your songwriting. I mean, I know I’m not exactly Mozart when it comes to composition, but you’re changing.”

“I am?” I asked.

“Well, for one thing, none of the songs are about me.”

I laughed. “Not directly.”

“Well, it’s the first album you’re not writing love songs to me, cleverly hidden–or hate songs. They’re about bigger things. Better things.”

I felt embarrassed to be so transparent, but grateful that he’d been able to see through my creative guise.

“You know,” I said. “Three years ago… that’s what I wanted. More than you in bed or you as a boyfriend or whatever. I just wanted you to notice.”

He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “We all notice. You’re—what’s it that James calls you?—the fulcrum. That’s it. Your the very center, the sun. We’re just the planets in gravitational pull.”

“You’re totally mixing your metaphors.”

“Which is why I don’t write much, of course. I’m just the pretty voice.”

I squeezed his waist and felt, for probably the first time since we’d broken up, that we understood each other. That whatever had passed between us as lovers had changed; we’d managed the near impossible: we’d become friends.

‘Cause I’m Short On Time, I’m Lonely and I’m Too Tired to Talk

Image by Natania Barron — CC BY SA

The above lyric is from Keane’s “Can’t Stop Now” and it’s apropos for more reasons other than I just like the song. Life, in short, these days, has been nothing short of OMGWTF. I really don’t want to go into the details, ’cause honestly, this blog ain’t that sort of thing. We’re okay. We’re managing. But I hadn’t been able to write a lick in the last almost three weeks due to the insanity of life as of late but… BUT! (Oh, shit, she’s whippin’ out the caps) I wrote last night and came close enough to the middle mark in the novel that I will call it 50% finished. Close enough for rock ‘n’ roll, as they say.

Anyrot. Music has been one of the things I feel like has been keeping me going the last few weeks. I am so grateful for it. It’s been something constant in my life since I was a child. No, even before I was born; music was around me in utero. When I was less than two, I used to rest my head on my dad’s knee while he played guitar, listening to the vibrations. It really is a part of me. Something that runs in my blood. It’s a marvelous, marvelous gift.

Rock Revival has taken some curious turns in the last few weeks, including the almost death of my heroine, a visit to rehab, and a total detour in the ways of love that I hadn’t anticipated. I’m realizing that sometimes the best stories are found when I veer as sharply as possible from romance and the expected. It’s a good thing.

A bit of an excerpt, and a live version of “Can’t Stop Now” with a very sticky Tom Chaplin being very rockstar with the crowd.

James greeted me at the front door; I’d managed to avoid him entirely since I got back, sneaking late into the studio and corresponding mostly by text, and sparingly at that. He smelled like cardamom and was wearing a way too warm wool sweater that scratched my face when I hugged him. He hugged me for a long time, long enough for me to take in the smells of curry and roasting meat and hear the sound of the rest of the guests in the back of the house. It sounded like more people than just Kurt and Tom.

“Please don’t hate me for this,” James said, pulling me away and holding me out by the shoulders. “I tried to keep it intimate. But Tom’s got some ideas, and he really wanted everyone here.”

“Everyone? Please tell me this isn’t some fucked up musical version of ‘This is Your Life’…”

“No, hah. Nothing like that. Just everyone that’s, you know, part of us. This. The band.”

“Fun.”

“And it’s a dry party — so everyone will be sober.”

I blinked at him.

“Please don’t leave,” he begged.

I didn’t leave. I followed him like a dog shamed after pissing on the carpet, and saw that indeed, “everyone” was there. Kurt and Tom, of course. And Dusty. And Jeff and Ian and Clarke, our engineers in Nashville; also, Peter and Clive, our producers in the UK, Denny our agent, Ralph our head roadie, and our own personal label executive, a chick by the name of Kelly, who, in attempt to look casual, had donned a lovely J. Crew ensemble to set off her positively middle-American girl next door looks.

There were hugs and well-wishes, and some tears, but really I could see through it all. Likely Dusty got wind and wanted to use this as some kind of proof to the label folks and everyone else that we’re working with on the album that I’m not dying, or dead, or incapable of working.

The food was really good. James had my favorite Indian restaurant cater, and so we all ate way too much. There was zero alcohol to be found anywhere which, I knew, was an attempt to keep me from feeling weird but, honestly, it just made things feel stranger.

Do you ever have those moments where life just seems to turn a page? You know, it’s like you’ve just reached the end of one chapter and started a new one. Even if you’re in a familiar place it’s like you wake up, or turn around, or open a door and everything just looks slightly different. That was that night in a nutshell.

You built it up brick by brick…

Photo: Natania Barron

Well, Rock Revival is officially at the 1/3 mark. 25K isn’t a novel, true, but it’s more than I’ve written in quite some time. In spite of crazy busy baby stuff, job hunting, and a visit to the beach with the husband’s entire clan, I’ve been crawling along. Some days have been painfully busy and writing hasn’t been an option, but I usually make up for it. If I could actually type for long periods on the laptop, it might be a way to bolster the word count; but alas, that’s likely never going to be unless Apple actually starts designing products with ergonomics in mind rather than the “ooh, shiny!’ factor. And we know that’s not likely to happen any time soon.

I’ve done a bit of reading over the last few weeks (two whole novels!), and while I’ve been tempted to leave this world of non-speculative fiction, I’ve stayed the course. My goal is to finish the book in the next five weeks. It’s possible if I log about 1500 words a day on average, roughly NaNoWriMo pace. See, there’s a novella I’d like to write that’s due by the end of September, and I prefer not to work on two things at the same time if I can help it. However, if the book isn’t done by then I’m just going to have to forego the novella. But that’s okay. I just know that I’m a much stronger writer if I can focus, which these days is hard enough to come by without adding more complexities in the writing department!

One of my current goals with Rock Revival is upping the musical ante. I realized that I’ve been thinking and talking a great deal about music lately, but Kate, the protagonist, hasn’t. So she goes on a bit of a musical journey in the most recent pages, talking about the Cure as a huge influence, as well as the fictitious Marla North, Kate’s idol (who she meets later on in the book). I plowed through some big drama with Kate’s mother dying, and I know I’m going to have to revise that section a great deal. There’s just so much to say and show that it’s a bit of a challenge to get it right on the first go-round. But that’s what drafts are for, right?

Next up: finishing the album, resolving relationships, and getting ready to go on tour.

Drafty Tidbit:

And Mom? I guess I miss her. Burying her was difficult. But I’m constantly caught between grief and relief when it comes to her death. She died drunk, she lived drunk. Living with her was a nightmare, and even if my shitty attitude as a kid drove her away she still made her own choices. Just like I made my own… But it’s a lie to claim that funerals give closure. If anything, they just signal the hauntings to come, the moments you forget they’re dead in the first place. That’s what hardest about death. That’s what’s hardest about losing her without ever really coming to peace with her. It’s like a sustain chord that never resolves.

Today’s Track: Myth, by Keane, from Strangeland. Tom Chaplin’s voice during the bridge continues to give me goosebumps every time I hear it. And the lyrics are spot on for the last few chapters of this book.

I can’t stay here to hold your hand, I’ve been away for so long

By Kaldari (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

That’s a Neko Case lyric, from “The Next Time You Say Forever” from Middle Cyclone. It sums up things nicely for where the book is going right now.

But first things first. I had a great time at ConTemporal, the convention in my back yard. It was splendid to see so many friendly faces and see folks I hadn’t seen in a long time. I really enjoyed the panels I was on, particularly the one on Neo-Victoriana and the one on Weird Westerns. I’m always happy as a clam to talk about these sorts of things, even if I did compare my writing process to Pooh Bear’s “Think, think, think” and talk probably too much about shiny things and Young Guns. (Note to Karen: I seem to always bring you up as the Aldersgate inspiration… which really was the springboard for all of this. <3)

Unfortunately, the baby girl* didn’t cooperate too well at night, so I was a bit of a zombie by the time Sunday rolled around. But it’s getting better. Four of the last seven nights she’s slept six hours or thereabouts. It was just convention timing that was bad.

Anyway, because I’ve regained my zeal in the last four weeks, I still had to do some writing last night. Some wine helped (though neither was remarkable enough to write home about) and I sat down to clock in just under 2K for the night. Sincerely happy with that.

In other news, I’m about to finally get that digital piano I talked about before, because heaven help me I’m going to explode if I can’t get some music playing in. I try not to cry thinking about not being able to play guitar (wandering into Guitar Center and having to walk away from the guitars was really, really hard) but it’s life. I can still write. I can still play piano. (Our bodies are fragile. People, take care of them.) I’m playing around with the idea of actually writing and recording some of the songs from the book, because that’s how I work. I feel like I can’t get it right if I can’t sing it/play it, in this aspect. (And cool thing about the keyboards these days, you can pretty much be a one person band if you need to be. We’ll see if I can convince the husband to lay down some guitar tracks…)

The book is turning into a bit of a multimedia project, and I’ve set up a Pinterest board for visual inspiration as well as a Spotify playlist (though what’s frustrating is that lots of things, like Zeppelin and the Beatles and whatnot, aren’t available). It’s not just songs I like to listen to, or musicians that I dig, but also folks who would have influenced the band members. Okay, so we basically share the same musical tastes but… I swear, I’ll put Kurt’s playlist together (yes, I’m thinking of creating playlists for individual characters) and that’ll be totally weird and wonky. Exciting discoveries (since I’ve been primarily listening to Classical music for the last half decade) include Fran Healy of Travis’s solo album (which features Neko Case and Paul McCartney). I listened to Travis pretty much on repeat through college, and the fact that Fran’s worked with some of my other favorites of all time (including an upcoming project with Keane) I’m borderline giddy.

More very rough first drafty goodness. Backstory bleeding into present story, and stuff about love and liquor.

Nashville was our attempt at saving ourselves. At saving the band. At saving the music. With Sara out of the picture (but not out of mind for neither James nor I) James and I had a lot more time to really figure out what kind of sound we wanted, and what we wanted to say. Both of us were single, and neither of us were over that last hearbreak. So Lester Hotel was, no surprise, a total catharsis.

And really, when we stepped away from the whole thing we realized that it was far less of a band album and more of an album where our band happened to play the songs we wrote. Dusty and James insisted that Kurt stay out of the process, aside from just playing what we told him, and Tom and Paul sort of danced around the periphery.

And yeah, there’s another story there, too. Because halfway through Lester Hotel, a few weeks after we were mixing down the first demo of “16^th Street Lights”, I realized something really strange. That I had feelings for James.

We’d worked together so long, and he’d always been Sara’s. And honestly, I thought they were going to get married (though God knows Sara’s parents didn’t take well to James to begin with; part of me would have loved seeing what they’d do with a half-Indian grandchild). I’d constructed a pretty impressive wall around my perception of James, and it’d been up so long—and, I should mention, expertly fortified with liquor and delusions—that when it came down, I almost crumbled, too.

*this post took approximately 5 hours to write. On and off… yeah. All hands on deck!

GeekDad Post: Geeking Out With the Beatles

Geeking Out With the Beatles: The Magic of Music and Melody on a Young Mind

Photo: dunechaser

Not only do I love Rock Band, but the Beatles also happen to be my favorite band in the entire world that ever was or will be from now until the end of the world.

Suffice it to say, as The Beatles: Rock Band gets closer to release, I’m struggling to suppress my glee.

I don’t just dig early or late Beatles, or psychedelic or 65-66 Beatles (though, if pressed, that is my favorite era)–I love all the Beatles. And if it wasn’t for the Beatles, there’s a chance I’d be far less geeky, and interesting, than I am today. How? Here’s a look at my life, with the Beatles:

All Together Now: Family sing-fests in the car. “Yellow Submarine” in particular; we just nailed that four-part harmony. I am continuing the tradition with my geeklet today, who already rocks out.

Savoy Truffle: A six year stint as a vegetarian and a subsequent love of cooking. I learned to cook with Linda McCartney’s cookbooks. Once you perfect the art of making vegetables and textured soy protein taste good, you can do anything!

… Read the whole article at GeekDad.

GeekDad: Top 10 Geeky Instruments

By way of a wee announcement, my first post is live over at the GeekDad blog. So, even though I’m not a dad, I am a geek… so I’m a GeekMom! I’m really excited to be part of this deliciously geeky group of guys and gals!

I know it says it’s by Michael Harrison, but that’ll soon change.

Top 10 Geeky Instruments

By Michael Harrison
May 1, 2009 |
8:00 am |
Categories: Armchair Geek

Jay Cartwright and his Marvelon. Photo: Lemming Malloy

“Music self-played is happiness self-made,” or so say They Might Be Giants. Not only can playing music make you happy, but, according to research, it can also make you smarter. And since your kids’ brains are primed for learning music at a young age, the lessons they get now will stay with them long after.

But, hey, why not be geeky and musical? Let’s take a look beyond guitar, piano, and clarinet to uncharted territory. Hit the jump for 10 Geeky Instruments for your consideration.

10. Keytar - When I think keytar, I think one thing: Kids Incorporated rockin’ it 80s style. However, as I’ve learned, this oft-ridiculed hybrid instrument can in fact be wonderfully geeky. Take the steampunk band Lemming Malloy here in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and lead singer Jay Cartwright. Not only does he embrace the majestic nature of the keytar, he’s re-made and re-named it entirely: Jay embellished and modified his keytar with his own hands. The result? The Marvelon. Really, the name says it all.

And did you know that Justin Timberlake, Ben Folds and “Weird Al” Yankovic are all known for their keytar prowess?

Suggested tunes: Lemming Malloy, Avalauncher

More…

Natania Barron

Musings. Melodies. Mischief.

Tag Archives: music