Please Don't Sue Me, Mr Kristofferson (Songwriting Week 4--Shutters)

If you're looking for something cheerful to read, step away from the screen, set down the laptop, put the iPad back in the wrapper. In short, come back later when you're ready to marinate in a jar of cynicism. That's not to say that this installment is entirely negative, at least not in my view.

This is another brand new song this week. It's not quite done, but it's close enough for public preview. The core idea behind this one is from an event in my past, so I'll call this an old idea. Why it bubbled back up to the present creative day, I'm not really sure. Some things just need to percolate before they're ready, I guess.

Just over six years ago, I was on a week long business trip in Los Angeles, specifically at a resort hotel near Santa Monica Pier (that'll give you a hint as to the title). Nice digs? Definitely. If you've got to be away from home for a week, this is the way to do it. Add to that the fact that it was January, sunny, and 80 degrees outside, and I'm sitting pretty. Back home the infamous Raleigh ice storm of 2004, where kids were stuck in schools overnight and commuters stranded on highways for 10 or more hours, was on its way.

After a long day of meetings, I decided to watch the sun go down on the Pacific from my hotel room balcony. You can get an idea of where I was looking from in the picture below:



If I'm not mistaken, you can actually see my balcony in this shot. Whatever. While I raided the honor bar to make the dusk go by, I noticed a lot of activity on the terrace below me that looked something like this:



Well, not exactly like this. On my night they were taller and more Mediterranean, but you get the idea. Anyway, while I watched their wedding night unfold, my thoughts wandered from how beautiful the setting was to things more pessimistic. Specifically, in this land of the free and home of the 50% divorce rate, I started wondering, what are the odds they'll still be married in 10 years? I mean, this is Los Frickin' Angeles I'm sitting in. Everybody in this town is using everybody else for something, right? If you don't believe me ask Robert Downey Jr's character in the movie "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang." Isn't the divorce rate here something like 117%? Actually, according to this website the LA divorce rate is 70%. I have no idea how accurate that is and I don't care for my purposes. Let's just agree that the rate in SoCal is higher than the US average.

Which all adds up to the fact that I'm sitting in that balcony thinking with odds like that working against you, why does anybody in Los Angeles get married? At least in the rest of the country you've got a coin flip of a chance of hanging in there. Pretty cynical, right? I admit it. The answer to why most folks try is, of course, some variation of love is blind/eternally optimistic/take your pick of hopeful cliches.

Now in truth I literally hadn't thought of that couple or that night in years. It would be really interesting to know if they're still together. No, I'm not creepy enough to call the hotel and try to get their name and figure it out, but I am curious. In the meanwhile, many of you know that I went through a divorce myself since then, which means I have even more perspective and history through which to filter what I remember from that night. While pondering how my own life has changed since then, it occurred to me that my experience that night could have been really different and interestingly bitter if I'd been a grizzled, divorced guy witnessing that wedding from that balcony in that town. Put another way, what if instead of me watching what I saw it had been Kris Kristofferson? Why Kristofferson? Well, he's got a lot of ex wives, right? And because of a quote I once heard attributed to him that goes something like, "You've got to be a miserable bastard all of the time to write a decent song some of the time." So let's wallow in some misery and see if we can write a song.

I know, this is warped and depressing and nobody wants to read this crap, but that's what went through my head: how would Kristofferson write a song about that night? Of course I don't really know, but I gave it a shot and here it is:

Shutters (A Wedding in West L.A.)
To listen to the song, click on the link above, select Audio and click on the word "Listen" under the song's title

Pretty damn dark. Is that how I feel about marriage now? Hell no! I didn't just get remarried because I like to tempt fate. I married Christina because I love her and I'm grateful to her for a chance to prove I can learn from old mistakes. Plus there's no replacement for having that one person that accepts you for all you are. I hear all you singles saying you don't have to get married to have that, and you're right, but the act of commitment that marriage represents is to me a powerful symbol and incentive to try to get it right day after day, in the wee hours of the night, and as the days turn into weeks into months into years into a lifetime together. But remember, it wasn't me writing this song, it was this guy:

So, if you don't like it, blame him. See you next week, and thanks for reading, even when it hurts.

SHUTTERS [Fm/capo I]

[Em] Not really a voyeur, but it ‘pears that way

Got a [Am] beer from the honor bar, to [Em] bed down the day

In the courtyard below me, gal in [C] white sa[Am]shays

As I [Em] try to look kindly on a [B7] wedding in West L.[Em]A.

So young, stunned and beautiful, like she was born today

He looks so damn scared, you might say in a good way

When the shutters close tonight, will they know what to say?

Still I try to look kindly on a wedding in West L.A.

That [Am] must be her daddy

[Em] She’s got his smile

[C] And this must be momma

With her [Em] makeup running wild

God for[G]give me for thinking

They’re [D] gonna curse this [Am] daaay

As I [Em] try to look kindly on a [B7] wedding in West L.[Em]A.

Someone’s waiting on me, ‘cross the Great Divide

Hear there’s ice in her forecast, I might have to stay awhile

But there’s babes in the woods there, that I can’t betray

As I try to look kindly on a wedding in West L.A.

She had a daddy, too

But I took his smile

And her momma thought well of me

When we gave her a grandchild

Then God got me to thinking

‘Bout another waaay

Now I sit and stare blankly at a wedding in West L.A.

Love your woman and use things, in that order son

And come death’s embrace, a good race you’ll have run

As for me and mine, sir, there’s still hell to pay

As I try to look kindly on your wedding … your wedding

… in West L.A.

(c) Steve Celestini, March 28, 2010

Deep Cuts (Songwriting Week 3--Settle for Beer)

I'm calling this installment "Deep Cuts" because I freakin' LOVE double entendres. Just ask any of the guys in my band, my book club, or my fantasy baseball league (he said ball). In fact I would rather speak in double meanings (he said wood) than breathe. OK, that's a slight exaggeration, but give me a couple drinks and I'll gladly enter any double meaning contest even if I'm just competing against myself (he said ... uh, nevermind). Thank you, Beavis. Thank you, Butt-head.

What does this have to do with songwriting? Well, the song I'm featuring this week is a "deep cut" in at least two senses of the phrase. First, it's one of my oldest tunes and I have to go way back in my personal songwriting history to dredge it up. Second, the lyrics are quite literally ripped out of some seriously internal places in my psyche. If my spiritual and emotional core was the continental U.S., this song came from somewhere between Casper, Wyoming and Rapid City, South Dakota: just left of center, very old and very rustic.

Deep as all that sounds, it started innocently (and not very deeply) enough. A friend of mine's wife walked by me in a public park and as we exchanged hello's while passing each other I could have sworn that she leered at me! This was out of character for her, totally inconsistent with the relationship we had or have since had, and basically just didn't make any sense. I actually fretted about whether or not to ask her about it for about 15 seconds, but luckily I came to my senses. Instead, and some time later, I jotted this down:

Caught your eye, at least I think I did
Coulda been my imagination
Girls like you don't usually care for guys like me

And man oh man did I have an instant love-hate relationship with that phrase! All the angst and frustration of being a high school boy who never really had a serious girlfriend, who enviously watched his dumb-ass friends date all the girls he wanted to date, just came roaring back. And I hated revisiting that feeling, but the phrase summed it up so nicely that I got painfully enamored of it.

Fast forward to another time and place, and I'm sitting at one of my favorite watering holes and me and a buddy are doing what guys do when they drink ... make fun of each other. Then when that gets boring you start telling stories, usually blatant lies about meaningless crap just to get a rise (he said rise) out of somebody. This particular lie involved some bragging by my friend about sexual exploits. Now I knew he was lying, and he knew that I knew he was lying, and there was no specific sexual partner implicated, but somehow I also knew that the lie was covering up a painful truth:

That reminds me of a talk I had
With this fella 'tween shots of tequila
One night as we were telling lies and comparing scars

And with that I laid the groundwork, the structure, for the rest of a song about what most men want, but few of us will admit: a closet full of killer shoes. Wait ... wrong blog. What I meant to say is that what we want at our core is to love and be loved, but most of us don't have the language skills or courage to admit that. So what do us guys do? We go to a bar hoping to meet that dream girl, but we settle for beer. And that predisposition to settle, that willingness to compromise from the start, makes us miss a lot of important things in life. And why? Because we're afraid to get burned again, or ever, or have to admit we need or think we need somebody else to feel whole. So we settle for beer. I've been going to that same bar for 10 years now and I can promise you it's chock full of people who are settling for their favorite brand of, or substitute for, the sweet beer.

As for me? I like to believe that I didn't settle, but in order to have the courage NOT to settle, I had some serious soul searching to do first. Which raised the question, how the hell do you search your soul--it's not like we have a built in switch to flick, especially us guys? As I asked myself that question, I thought of my high school sophomore English teacher who taught us how to write "stream of consciousness" and this happened:

Treat this guitar just like a key to a door
Kinda scared of what's behind it
Takes all my nerve just to crack 'er open and step inside
But I'm more afraid of being alone
Never been content with coasting
Wanna step through that backlit door and see what's there

It all makes perfect sense to me. All the things I wanted to do or change in my life but was afraid of, and the reasons I was afraid, are all there. Just six little lines of phrase was all it took. How pathetic and ethereal at the same time.

You probably won't be surprised to hear that until now I really didn't circulate this one outside of my inner sanctum of friends and family. But I'm OK with wider distribution now. I think I've learned a lot of the lessons that I was challenging myself to tackle at the time. How that all subsequently transpired will show up in future posts on this blog.

Until then, thanks for reading, and thank YOU boys.




To listen to the song Settle For Beer, please click on the link below, navigate to "Audio" on Steve's Sonic Bids page and select "Settle for Beer" from the music player list:

http://www.sonicbids.com/epk/epk.aspx?epk_id=48837

SETTLE FOR BEER

Caught your eye, at least I think I did
Coulda been my imagination
Girls like you don't usually care for guys like

That reminds me of a talk I had
With this fella 'tween shots of tequila
One night as were telling lies and comparing scars

He's a regular at my favorite tavern
Always something wise to say
Considers himself to be the public house Voltaire

Told me that night as he was fading fast
The reason that he hangs in bars
He said, "I'm hoping for some love, but I'll settle for beer."

Me and my boys started playing one day
Cause we had us an awakening
Figure to get a little more out of living if we live a little more

Treat this guitar just like a key to a door
Kinda scared of what's behind it
Takes all my nerve just to crack 'er open and step inside

But I'm more afraid of being alone
Never been content with coasting
Wanna step through that backlit door and see what's there

So I thank you folks for listening tonight
Don't expect you to respond
Because I'm hoping for some love, but I'll settle for beer
Yeah I'm hoping for your love, but I'll settle for beer

(c) Steve Celestini

Starlight, Star Bright, First Song I Write Tonight ... (Songwriting Week 2--How's This End)

Thanks for re-enlisting. This week I intended to dig up one of the first songs I wrote (The Vision) and do a compare and contrast to the most recent song I wrote and posted last week (The Rest of Forever). But then a couple things got in the way of that idea. One, I must have "accidentally" deleted my recording of The Vision as part of a desperate attempt to salvage whatever songwriting credibility I've mustered so far. And two, The Rest of Forever is no longer the most recent song I wrote. Had another idea this past week while sitting at a traffic light outside my neighborhood Starbucks, and it goes something like this:

www.sonicbids.com/stevecelestini (Click to the left, click on the "
Audio" icon in the page that opens and select "How's This End -- Up Tempo")

Or ... should it go like this?:

www.sonicbids.com/stevecelestini (Go back to the sonic bids music player and this time select "How's This End -- Stripped Down")

Same song, same chords, but different tempo, key and vocal style makes for two very different feels. So, in addition to whatever comments you guys want to make, I'd love to hear your votes on which version you prefer and why. And oh by the by, if these recordings sound rough it's because they are ... very. These are basically first drafts that I had to record immediately after a long weekend of revelry in order to still miss my self-imposed publication deadline. That's all I'll say about that. That and thanks for your patience.

Eventually, I'll tell you what I was going for with this number. Before I do, though, let me acknowledge some very astute and collaborative advice I got from a friend. On Friday I played one of the two versions of the tune for Jim Ermilio. Jim was visiting from Boston to take part in our annual fantasy baseball draft. He listened carefully and essentially said, "I don't know anything about music, but do me a favor and play it [the other] way instead." And I did.

Now, let me make two comments about what Jim said. First, Jim may not be a musician per se, but he's an AVID music appreciator, concert goer,and collector (especially of albums on vinyl). PLUS he has two children who are brilliant musicians in large part due to the love and encouragement of Jim and his lovely wife, Sharon. So for Jim to say he doesn't know anything about music is preposterous, and I told him so. Second, when I played it "the other way" it sounded truer to the song's lyrical intent, more natural. Note that I didn't say it was better. I may think it's better and Jim may think so, but better is like beauty: it's the eye of the beholder thing (ear in this case but nevermind, I'm on a roll, or so I think; stop self-editing, Steve). In any event, that's why I'm giving Jim partial songwriting credit on this one; he also made some great lyric suggestions that I adopted.

To resume, what I was going for was to capture several simul-thoughts that popped into mind outside the Starbucks. While sitting at that traffic light, the ages old childhood wish "starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight" came to mind at the same exact moment I was remembering how much I used to like the 1960s-70s show "Hee Haw" when I was a kid. Then I remembered an old Buick my father and mother used to drive back in those days and how it looked sitting in the driveway of our house at 1508 Swope, Colorado Springs, CO. Strange mix of ingredients, but put them in the form of a recipe and it would look something like this:

One wish upon a star, One traffic light, Dash of Buck Owens, Dash of Roy Clark, One old car, One driveway, Three tablespoons bacon fat (because I pretty much always have bacon on my mind). Mix all ingredients and pat into disk shaped cakes. Fry in black cast iron skillet over medium heat (serves 2).

Not sure how well that food analogy works. Looks pretty stupid, upon reflection, but what the hell, I gave it a shot. To state it more literally, that mental mish-mash swimming around my head at that light is what prompted me to come up with the line "Red light, green light, first one I see tonight, tell me do I stop or go" and use it to start a pseudo-country song. Once I had that core concept in mind, I manufactured the rest of the story: basically, two star crossed lovers who can't decide whether they can stand each others company long enough to have a relationship with staying power. We don't know how it ends (I'm not writing Hollywood screenplays). All we do know is that the guy in the car wants to keep trying, but his patience is wearing thin and he really needs this lady to give him a sign, a gesture, that tells him she wants to keep trying, too.

I think that about does it for this week, but before I close let me state for the record that the story in this song is COMPLETELY MANUFACTURED AND FICTIONAL! Christina and I are fine and dandy and loving every minute of each others company. Hopefully that goes without saying, but I've met a lot of people over the years who think that every line of every song is based on something going on in the writer's life. Sometimes that's true, but many times it's not. If it was true all the time, every member of my band The Gravy Boys would have a cirrhotic liver, seven divorces, a felony record, and a moonshine still in the backyard. Oh, and we'd all be living in Kentucky or Oklahoma. See you next week.

Steve in North Carolina

PS: You may note below that this week I've included the guitar chords I use to play the song, just in case anyone's interested, wants to play along, etc. I'll try to do this in all future posts as well. Cheers.

PPS: I can't wait to hear how Jim reacts to being the co-writer of a song associated with memories of Hee Haw. He hates Hee Haw!!

_____________________________________

HOW’S THIS END [A (G form, Capo II)]

[G] [D] [C]

[G] [C] [D] [D][C][A][D]

[G] Red light, [D] green light

[G] First one I [C] see tonight

[G] Tell me, do I stop or [D] go [D][C][A][D]

[G] Rear view, [D] side view

[G] Both fill my [C] eyes with you

[G] How’s this end, [D] I’ve got to [G] know [G7]

[C] Walk to me, [Cm] talk to me

[G] Give me hope

A [D] reason not to [G] drive off in this [G7] lonely car!

[C] Please, my dear, [A] make this year

One where neither breaks the other's [D] heart [D][C][A][D]

[G] Waiting, antici[D]pating

[G] For a time when [C] no one’s [Am7] hating!

[G] How’s this end, [D] I’ve got to [G] know [D]

[INSTRUMENTAL TO FIRST VERSE THRU G7 CHORD]

[C] Walk to me, [Cm] talk to me

[G] Give me hope

A [D] reason not to [G] drive off in this [G7] lonely car!

[C] Please, my dear, [A] make this year

One where neither breaks the other's [D] heart [D][C][A][D]

[G] Waiting, antici[D]pating

[G] For a time when [C] no one’s [Am7] hating!

[G] How’s this end, [D] I’ve got to [G] know [C]

[G] How’s this end, [D] I’ve got to [G] know [C]

[G◊] How’s this end, [D◊] I’ve got to [G] know [G] [C] [G]

(c) Steve Celestini and Jim Ermilio

A Song a Week, Starting Riiiiiight ... Now (Week 1--The Rest of Forever)

Like all my best ideas, this one is stolen ... from a movie (sorry, Joe). This time the film was "Julie and Julia." (http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/julieandjulia/) If Netflix hasn't mailed it to you yet, it's a great film about an aspiring chef/blogger (Julie) trying to walk in the shoes of her heroine Julia Childs by cooking her way through 500+ recipes from Ms. Childs cookbook in a year. Along the way, Julie learns a lot about cooking, but much more about herself. A couple of weeks after seeing the movie I started wondering, what might I learn about songwriting and myself if I did something comparable? Well, we're gonna find out, starting this week. Except the food for thought on this blog will be music; specifically, songs that I have written and performed (or at least recorded) myself. I will post a song a week from past, present and future songwriting efforts, and try to explain to you and me why I wrote what I wrote and what, if anything, I hoped to achieve in the effort. And come next spring, well, who knows? Let's decide that next spring ...

I guess I could begin at the beginning, with the first song I ever wrote and recorded, but that seems too predictable. Instead, I choose to start with the last thing I wrote, a song called "The Rest of Forever." You can listen to it on myspace now at this link:

http://www.myspace.com/stevecelestinimusic

Of course, you can do what you like, nobody's watching ... but might I suggest you give the song one listen before reading on? This whole exercise will, I predict, be more interesting if you read MY thoughts only after thinking about YOUR initial thoughts on song meaning, motivation, etc. Go ahead, give it a spin. I'll wait right here ...

Welcome back. So what's going on here? Well two not quite parallel events drove this one. First, my wife of five months today has been battling a couple of chronic maladies. Nothing life threatening or dire (please don't call her if you know her), but there was a morning several weeks back sitting on an airplane flying to a business meeting on a way too early flight after way too many beers the prior night when I didn't know that yet. So I wallowed. I let myself imagine the worst. And it sucked. Luckily, I was in an aisle by myself and there was no beverage service so nobody else had to witness my quasi-breakdown. The second event happened earlier: the death of my grandmother in late '08. The two events came together in my consciousness such that while I (irrationally) muddled over disaster scenarios for me and my beloved, washing myself with self-pity, the image of my grandfather, my beautiful, 97 year old grandfather, mourning the loss of his wife of 71 years crept in and drove the emotional pain wedge home with devastating precision. I'm really proud of how well I composed myself by the time the plane landed and the fact that I didn't further embarrass myself, or my company, at my meeting that day.

Back to the song's composition. If you've ever been married, you know that on the days leading up to a marriage ceremony, on the day of, and many times thereafter, the word "forever" gets tossed around a lot. What does forever mean to a relationship? Is it something more than "till death do us part?" I like to think so, so ... hopefully ... when you listen to this song, you'll hear not only the sadness and poignance of the earthly story, but also the vision of a future worth dying for. That's what I think I was shooting for, anyway. Am I on target? We all get to decide for ourselves. That's one of the things I love best about music.

Talk to you next week. Thanks for reading and please feel free to share this blog with friends.

Steve

The Rest of Forever

Written by: Steve Celestini

Lady I see you Turning your face to the moon that betrays you And led me to this place To show us the rest of our lives Honey I want you Not for the moment but now and forever Till time and all memory take back the ring you now wear Cuz the rest of forever starts here Beauty walk towards me now This aisle leads you down A primrose pathway of faith And I won't forget the vows We promised to keep somehow No matter what bitterness waits Wife I adore you And I always will so I humbly implore you To tell me you still want me Just like the day we first kissed Woman I hear you I'll try to be better at listening to you With more than my ears please don't cry now, it tears me apart Can we just let forever restart Darling don't leave me don't Your suffering grieves me so My every breath labors inside I can't sleep without you dear But last night I woke in fear Sure that this morning you died When I didn't wake up I just cried Where's God when I need him this time Please Lord give us just one more night ... Angel I miss you But soon I'll be with you and never will leave you Once we rendezvous at the moon that first lit up our hearts And the rest of forever will start