Writing and composing ourselves
To the woman outside Metro Center tonight, the one who didn't need any money, who said she was pregnant and rubbed her belly as such, who had a mysterious government job nearby, who had a home out in Leesburg but just had someone down the street run into her car, who had already stopped into St. Patrick's Church without luck, whom the police wouldn't drive home, and so who needed any money for a long taxi ride home, I was sorry for whatever actually did happen to you.
But early this afternoon at work, I heard Nick Lowe singing about all men are liars ("words ain't worth no more than worn-out tires"). Then Richard Thompson came to us and sang a song called Money Shuffle. After work, I drank a beer called Nosferatu at Chinatown Coffee and met my friend Annie. We sat upstairs at the old synagogue, and Nick Hornby read to us about all the things in life we hide from each other (in his context, with an album leak). Then Ben Folds sang, "You know what hope is? Hope is bastard, hope is a liar, a cheat and a tease."
Lowe told us too, gathered in the office, how "You don't know it, but I've made my mind up, you'll wind up in my arms." And Thompson said, "She's the kind of tease that means good news." I missed Hornby by minutes at the coffee shop, your perfect Nosferatu moment. On stage, Hornby talked about writing in his Songbook, the text that sits in both hard and paperback on my bookshelf, about Folds' Smoke. "You don't have to be Bob Dylan," Hornby argued in that chapter, "and you don't have to be whoever writes the songs for Celine Dion (in other words, you don't have to use the words and phrases, dreams, hero, survive, or inside my/yourself, because life isn't an ad for a new type of Ford); you can, if you're brave, have go at being Cole Porter, and aim for texture, detail, wit, and truth." Folds broke apart one of the new songs they'd written together, Belinda, and explained how their pieces joined up.
I nearly convinced myself today how okay my pipes were in the colder air, and I was lucky to have friends, both early and late today, open up in unexpected ways. To the woman outside the subway tonight, again, I was sorry for whatever actually did happen to you. But lies and truth had filled up the day, and we all had better songs to write tomorrow.
November 3rd, 2010 at 10:42 PM
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