RUDIMENTS, pt. 178
Making Cars
You can't take a canoe on the
ocean, but they're the same letters.
Hmmm. I guess you could, but no
one does. Or is it that no one dares?
I wonder. Maybe it's no one reads.
(Same letters, once more, as 'dares').
So many things are always happening.
The guy who wrote that Christmas song,
Silver Bells, he was Jay Livingstone,
a sidekick of a songwriting guy name
Ray Evens, with whom he teamed up.
Before he was Jay Livingstone, he was,
from birth, Jacob Levinson. All those
Christmas carol guys were Jewish :
Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne, and Irving
Berlin. 'Silver Bells' was written as
'Tinkle Bells,' but the publisher changed
it because of the common connotation
of 'tinkle.' Livingstone also wrote the
theme for 'Bonanza,' and 'Mr. Ed,'
TV shows, and he also wrote 'Que
Sera Sera,' 'Mona Lisa,' and the
other Johnny Mathis hit, 'All the
Time.' (If somebody loves you, it'd
no good unless they love you, all
the time...). Whew! So many overlaps.
In studying these sorts of things,
musically I mean, I have noticed that
most individual songwriters, by name,
each one, tend each to do their own
same things, over and over, from
song to song; their own signature
approaches and chord and note
sequences that become very
identifiable. And if you take
apart their songs, breaking
down the use of chords and
progression, oftentimes the one
thing that makes the difference
between songs is tempo. Just a
changed beat and speeded up, or
slowed down, rhythm and peak.
In music terms, 'retarded.' Try it
some time, if you care to; overlaying
one song atop the other (mentally)
as you hear them in your head often
proves me out. There are also key
and shift changes, and even then
the skeletal ghost of the songs as
written always remains pretty much
the same. 'Composer' by 'composer,'
they're each quite identifiable.
-
You can't just keep walking around
saying things like 'it's tough being
me,' and expect anyone else to care.
As I lived in those early NY days,
there was a complete separation
between normal life, as I saw it -
the one with families and spouses
and responsibilities - and what I
was doing. I was becoming a
professional outsider, a fringe
character, determining my own
ends and marking my days by no
comparisons to others at all. I
had a Studio School friend, one of the
big-deal guys there. Steve Sloman
was the name; still is, he's still around,
and gotten half-famous too in his
art-niche world. He had a cool
girlfriend - oddly a name I've
never been able to recall. I might
have been Heidi actually. Really -
and they had a large dog. A 'Poolie',
they called it. A large, generic
mix of Collie and Poodle. Large
and hairy. Unlike his girlfriend,
who was just large; Germanic
large or something, not fat or
fleshy, just a large-framed
Teutonic type, tall and big-boned
and overpowering. With gigantic
horn-rimmed glasses too. Really
cool and different. I'd never seen
anyone like that before. She and
Steve were constant companions,
like old married people, never
the one without the other, and
whenever you had a conversation,
it was always with 'three.'
Always those two, together as
one, and you. It was crazy-cool,
and intriguing. I never seen that
before either, two people in such
a consort of one, with a dog. I
saw them a lot. One day we were
walking east on Eighth Street,
away from the Studio School
building, and the traffic was
intense, loud, smoky, horns
blaring, cars stuck in traffic
in every direction. We were
nearing the crossing of Eighth
and Broadway, and nothing
was moving. Our walk-pace
was fast, by comparison. One
of us, there were about 5, said
something about how jittery and
raucous traffic seemed and all
the people caught up in it. It
was a Wednesday night, or
evening, rush-hour time, and as I
said the whole scene was dead -
traffic, lights, people. Steve jumped
at that last remark - about the
anger and noise of the people
snagged in all this - and said, to
the effect of: 'Look at them. Why
wouldn't they be that way. I would
if I was them - it's Weds. night, the
poor slobs have just made it to the
middle of the week, still have two
more days to go, all this they have
to put up with, day after day -
they've made a real mess for
themselves. They're angry, they're
tired, they're mad. So, yeah, I
understand perfectly why they're
like this. What's not to understand?'
And then it was 'ha ha,' at their
expense. We all got a good laugh
out of their plights.
-
I've thought of this weird little scene
lots of times since. I can remember
pretty much right where I was standing
as we talked, walking along. Up ahead
of us was the old District 65 union
building, a NY trucking local - there
were warehouse bays and trucks, all
jammed into a small, city streetway,
always jumbled up. People walking,
guys lugging, working, and yelling
commands, unloading trucks, pallets
and freight. You could work up a sweat
just watching them. Across the way,
back then, there was a record store.
In the window of the store, among
all the other albums shown, the new
'supergroup' Blind Faith' was being
featured - the import version of the
album cover, not the sanitized, American
one. This version had a topless young girl,
with fresh-budding young breasts, shown
as she held a model of a jet aircraft in her
hands. Her gaze was a bit strange, but
it was all memorable. The other corner
was a home-furnshing store named
'Zuma', I believe it was. High-end,
crafty-looking hippie stuff, furnishings
for people that sort of money and space.
There was a liquor store, and pharmacy
too. Everything seemed connected - to
life, to the hum, to the business world;
while we, at that moment, all seemed
connected to nothing. Just skirmishing
along, and there, then, simply making
fun of, and ridiculing it all and the
people caught up in it. I had mixed
emotions, and didn't really know
where I belonged. Which side, if there
were sides? Everybody I knew had
always worked, like one of those
people they'd just scoffed at. I felt
confused. I almost felt broken.
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