Monday, April 13, 2009
Current mood: mellow
Category: Religion and Philosophy
My special surprise,
I wrote this story in many versions...hope you like it :)
A Song For You
The crowd was screaming, their legs pushing against the floor, their arms waving, hands clapping. Lights flickered, as the crowd thumped together to the beat of the drums. Each footstep kept in time with the music, and their yelling voices became my song. Darkness turned into blinding light and the roar of human voices became a blur of noise that echoed the power of human desire. I walked the distance, and the eyes upon me, judging, was a familiar predication. Stepping up to the edge, hands reached out; not to greet but to feel the source of their infatuation. I stepped back and my mind swirled with fear and something else that I couldn’t name, up here so high. The strum of the guitar marked the start, and was drowned out by the union of their voices below. I closed my eyes and put my lips to the steel, and let out the first resounding note that came from deep within my gut. The journey was in full flight.....
******
That’s what brings be back to the road each time. It is the purpose to inspire, provide comfort and express through song, my prayer. There are defining moments that create a musician and define their status. These are the moments when all control becomes a hopeless idea and flaws are scrutinised. It is how the musicians deal with the ‘over focus’ of audiences that saves a performance, and hope. ....
The audience doesn’t know, but I do; the backstage drama of a broken light, missing instruments, drunk musicians. These inhibiters must not be allowed to penetrate our performance or the comforting song.....
******
The drums and guitar mingled together on the stage, and the crowd was silent, apart from the sporadic shouts of individuals. The whirls and swirls of dancing dresses behind me, created electricity in the air that was immediately felt by the auditorium. The room shook as the mass paced themselves along with the dancers, and the energy rose to the climax. My body swayed, and my mind left all thought behind, the only thing controlling me was the trance of music. Words tumbled out of my mouth and into the open crowd waiting hungrily to receive the tune, as if it were a drug that would numb their pain; and mine. The lyrics sent me up, higher, in a bewildered stupor and as the music slowed, brought me down. I felt what the crowd felt, and I knew I had connected with them, as our spirits flew together. We belong together.
******
When I stand on that stage, it’s a time set aside for me to pray, and hope for each of them to find their conviction. However, a wrongly played cord of the guitar, a shirt, underwear or flowers thrown at you, can often waver your concentration in the sanctuary you call the stage. But, you must find the control and add it to your music, so that the prayer and stillness I feel on that stage with my brothers can find the audience too.....
It’s hot. It hurts. I’m dizzy. We’re tired. But we play on. People don’t understand the pressures of each performance. Your record company demands sales, your managers demand interviews, but your audience demands escapism. This is something that cant’ be calculated in the midst of success. ....
******
Music is what brings me back to the world of the living. It envelops me wholly and shows me that there is something that can understand, without hurting. It emphasises each emotion to the brink, and gives the power to connect, and sends messages, pointing to the path to follow. The crowd, with one eye, followed my movements, my voice, and with the other, followed the song lyrics, chanting, as if to awaken the dead. The electric guitar and tambourine joined the celebration, and my arms rose to the air, guiding the crowd, to create unity, create passion. I kept them in a daze, but broke the spell, as the backing singers pulled us through the bridge, the layered voice surrounding us, taking us to another verse again, another journey.....
******
It’s hard to say or write the feeling, of camping in a new city, town and hotel room each night, but I can tell you it’s freeing. Time slows on my adventure, but speeds on the stage. How much I wish that it were reversed, that I could stand forever and capture the shining faces of each person, and pan to watch my band’s hands and hair work to the music that lives in our souls.....
You meet many people while you’re on the road, who find comfort in all the same things you do and it’s strange. You stop at places that you never knew existed. There is something mystical about it. Each home, each street light and gas station seem tweaked, just for you, so that a little pleasure and amusement can come from it, alienating you further, resonating the distance that you have travelled…a little homesick now, a little elated later.....
The stage is a place of safety, but the road is the element that separates your mind from the musical prayers you create. The distraction from the unruly crowd doesn’t compare to the torture my mind provides in the silence on the road. Each town is a slight version of the other; pieces remain from the one before to remind you of where you’ve been and where you are now. It is a constant struggle for sanity.....
******
My hand slipped up the stand, and held the microphone delicately. The journey to ecstasy on stage heightened as egging the audience on through syncopated rhythms which propelled then into metaphysical realms. My foot began to tap, I felt myself egging. They screamed and we sang out till our throats were sore and yelled to the heavens for serenity in our song. My guitar tuned in perfect fifths came to the rescue, like a sirens voice nearly pushing my heart out of my chest, hurting so much to want to follow the music like a sirens voice.. The beat of the drums brought back our senses.....
The chorus resonated through the crowd, and brought us in concert as one. All I could do was watch, thinking of the people around the city who could heard our cries. I stepped back from the microphone to the delight of the audience, and herd their voices rise for my attention. I ran back and pulled the microphone close to me and yelled…and they yelled back. So I yelled again…and they yelled back. Their commitment kept me safe, and urged the music to go on. I complied and pushed the beat in overdrive. We jumped together, On every plane, we journeyed as one. We listened, we dreamed and we jumped together. For a moment in time, I was Orpheus and I ran across the stage, feeling weightless, as I drew my energy from the multitude below me, in distance and in time. ....
******
The road is the loneliest place to be even if there are thousands that surround you. To curb the boredom I read. Ann Brashares, The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood was a book I devoured on the long trips between venues, and it keeps coming back to me, “I remember the turning tides of battle. I went astray but my mind was still a dreamer”. These words begin to remind me of every song I wrote, of the turning tides in my own existence, and to notice when I stray.....
My writing is a therapy that links the hopes of each audience member to an honesty that they feel inside, but often leads to my duplicity. This is why control is helpless on a stage. I sing for them, completely removed from the lyrics because I concentrate on the possible chaos of each concert. Will this light go off unexpectedly? Who will jump onto the stage with us? Will they sing in time?....
******
Feverish feeling flew across my skin, as my voice trembled in fear, because I knew the populace has drifted into their own minds, to escape, just like I had. The drums, guitar, violin, tambourine, dancer and singers alike, rejoiced in union and harmony and feel the beat once more. Our powerful animosity poisoned our position in the escape of the song, so all we could do was cry at the mercy of the harmony. The concluding attempt to leave behind a piece of ourselves, to show we had once been here and seen the purest form of expression, shown in the wails of our singing, as the last line gave sapience and finished the journey in our hearts that we were destined for. The concluding notes were a final attempt to leave behind a piece of ourselves resonating lingering ecstasy.....
******
Each experience adds to the emotional pain I record it in my music. It is the intellectual discourse that I lack, and the picture I desire to draw. I have been asked, ‘if you weren’t a musician what would you be?’, and I ask myself whether I could be a carpenter, or baker or accountant? I know that the answer I give masks the pain of performing. But I also know that nothing can compare to the experience on stage. My conflict lies within. The tortured artist lives on. ....
******
Time slowed, and all the world seemed to hear was the final strain of the guitar. The guitar strummed with me as I closed my eyes and sang, knowing that all the eyes in the room were closed too. We stood together, in those final moments, listening to each other’s pulse. My mind stayed with the flamenco melody and I knew nobody was ready to leave. So I sang again. peace washing over, as the song had done for me, what it had done for thousands more. It let our essence ascend us; to a place we rarely got to go, and rejuvenate in us a fullness, and a will to fight on. The song transported us to a place we love to go. I sang long after the music stoped; to the audience, to myself, to no one and everyone and it didn’t matter because I knew they could hear me. The songs might not have lasted very long, but the effects on me, were ever lasting. ....
Currently reading:In Cold BloodBy Truman CapoteRelease date: 2002-03-05
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