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Thinking of an old "rant" song of mine
Oct. 17th, 2007 01:58 pmThe germ of this song was a dream I had about 25 years ago, I think. In the dream, I had to hurry to a meeting of the Beacon Sloop Club (a local branch of the Clearwater organization), and was running late, I was struggling to get through the narrowish door on my crutches.
Someone in that meeting saw me and called out: "Hey, it's Peter Pan!" to which I replied: "That's right -- I can't walk, but I can fly!" To me, that meant that the power of the mind and the imagination will always trump the limitations of the body (It's bigger on the inside!).
So, five years ago, I got this notion in my head to try and write a song, just to see if I could do it, and I took my dream response as the core.
But as I put pen to paper and started writing out lyrics, it morphed into an entirely different animal -- about how Peter Pan was the boy who never grew up, and how there will always be people who will treat me like a child because they see my disability first. And that brouught up another pet peeve of mine about children's and YA fantasty:
How children in these stories are expected to grow out of magic, and leave it behind, instead of growing into magic and let it empower them thoughout adulthood (this was before Harry Potter).
And this is the "Song" that came out of it:
( Read more... )
I put "song" in quotes, because it doesn't hold together as a song, very well: the meter is all over the place, and the lyrics don't quite match up with the melody, and even I can't sing it easily. It's more like an unfinished essay than a song.
So that's why I backed up and started writing "proverb songs," as practice -- because proverbs make one point very concisely, with humor and wordplay, and they stick in your brain.
But as I read through more proverbs from different cultures, none of them ask to be songs, anymore. So I think my brain is itching to get back to the personal, and I think I'd like to start by retackling the point of this song. ...If I could just figure out what the point is, I may try to distill it down into a proverb-like catchphrase.
... I'll get back to you.
Someone in that meeting saw me and called out: "Hey, it's Peter Pan!" to which I replied: "That's right -- I can't walk, but I can fly!" To me, that meant that the power of the mind and the imagination will always trump the limitations of the body (It's bigger on the inside!).
So, five years ago, I got this notion in my head to try and write a song, just to see if I could do it, and I took my dream response as the core.
But as I put pen to paper and started writing out lyrics, it morphed into an entirely different animal -- about how Peter Pan was the boy who never grew up, and how there will always be people who will treat me like a child because they see my disability first. And that brouught up another pet peeve of mine about children's and YA fantasty:
How children in these stories are expected to grow out of magic, and leave it behind, instead of growing into magic and let it empower them thoughout adulthood (this was before Harry Potter).
And this is the "Song" that came out of it:
( Read more... )
I put "song" in quotes, because it doesn't hold together as a song, very well: the meter is all over the place, and the lyrics don't quite match up with the melody, and even I can't sing it easily. It's more like an unfinished essay than a song.
So that's why I backed up and started writing "proverb songs," as practice -- because proverbs make one point very concisely, with humor and wordplay, and they stick in your brain.
But as I read through more proverbs from different cultures, none of them ask to be songs, anymore. So I think my brain is itching to get back to the personal, and I think I'd like to start by retackling the point of this song. ...If I could just figure out what the point is, I may try to distill it down into a proverb-like catchphrase.
... I'll get back to you.
