We'd Meet In The Refrain
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Remember When the Music - Harry Chapin
Remember when the music
Came from wooden boxes strung with silver wire
And as we sang the words, it would set our minds on fire,
For we believed in things, and so we'd sing.
Remember when the music
Brought us all together to stand inside the rain
And as we'd join our hands, we'd meet in the refrain,
For we had dreams to live, we had hopes to give.
Remember when the music
Was the best of what we dreamed of for our children's time
And as we sang we worked, for time was just a line,
It was a gift we saved, a gift the future gave.
Remember when the music
Was a rock that we could cling to so we'd not despair,
And as we sang we knew we'd hear an echo fill the air
We'd be smiling then, we would smile again.
Oh all the times I've listened, and all the times I've heard
All the melodies I'm missing, and all the magic words,
And all those potent voices, and the choices we had then,
How I'd love to find we had that kind of choice again.
Remember when the music
Was a glow on the horizon of every newborn day
And as we sang, the sun came up to chase the dark away,
And life was good, for we knew we could.
Remember when the music
Brought the night across the valley as the day went down
And as we'd hum the melody, we'd be safe inside the sound,
And so we'd sleep, we had dreams to keep.
And I feel that something's coming, and it's not just in the wind.
It's more than just tomorrow, it's more than where we've been,
It offers me a promise, it's telling me "Begin",
I know we're needing something worth believing in.
Remember when the music
Came from wooden boxes strung with silver wire
And as we sang the words, it would set our minds on fire,
For we believed in things, and so we'd sing.
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Right Now and Yesterday
The song I pasted above was playing as I began this post. Not many stations play it, but good old WFUV does (available on line). The first time I heard this song was on a live tribute album for Chapin. Springsteen sang it amazingly, and spoke about how he found it corny at first, then he spoke about Chapin, and music. And it was great.
Yesterday I was walking by the office and the kids hanging out in front (preferring chairs to the floor elsewhere along the hall) asked me for a pre Shabbat rap. I closed my eyes and the spirit moved me. I wish I could remember it.
In case it wasn't clear, I did that Shabbat Shalom picture myself in the previous post. I woke up early yesterday and that was how I used the time.
I didn't catch her name but I once read a profile of a prolific writer who was proud of the laundry strewn around her home. She said that the many mystery novels she wrote wouldn't have happened if she'd put in the needed time to put away laundry and do all that which laundry metaphorically represents. I know that there's a middle road. And yet I respect her committed abandon and unabashed pride. I think about this now, as I get up and down from the computer, oscillating between blogging and cleaning. I just ajaxed (part of) the kitchen counter, something I do less often than some, but probably more often than this writer woman.
Recommended Blogs
It's been a while since I did a collection piece about other bloggers. Back in May I wrote about five bloggers. It says something about the nature of blogging that since that post two of my five blog heroes have shut down their shops.
Speaking of blogging, my first link to another blogger is to The Curious Jew. Chana is in her first year of university, but had I not told you that you'd have assumed her to be older based on the her nuanced high level writing. This blog recently took a look at blogging in a typically honest and sophisticated fashion. A friend of mine who works in entertainment and has a film degree from NYU's Tisch School feels strongly that Little Children is the best movie of the year. I sent him a copy of Chana's thoughts on Little Children and he whole heartedly agreed.
Through Pearl I discovered the of Quinn Cummings' blog. She makes me laugh out loud. Warning: it's not easy to get me to laugh out loud. I wouldn't say I'm a tough crowd, I just have my own taste. In movie theater's I am often the only one laughing at certain lines. I find Quinn's site to be the blog version of the kind of movie I appreciate. Her blog is intelligent, funny, touching and personal. You come away having learned something about what it means to be a human being.
Quinn's most recent post worked for me, lines like "I realized that cool simply wasn'tÃ’t going to enter the room as long as I was standing there asking if there were deviled eggs." Priceless.
In this classic post Quinn writes about a photo shoot she did (if her name sounds familiar it's because she was the child star of The Goodbye Girl). In her post she reveals the truth about foundation and other make up secrets that I suspect women don't want men to know.
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 6:07 PM
15 Comments:
I always liked Chapin. Too few people are familiar with his work outside Cat's In the Cradle.
Glad that you do continue to read Quinn's blog. She is brilliant, witty, charming, and cocky...all rolled into one person who is a gifted writer.
Like you, it takes a lot for me to laugh out loud, although I have a great sense of humor. But I guess my funny bone has selective reasoning of its own. Quinn is one of those writers who makes me laugh out loud or grin broadly!
I like your Shabbat Shalom picture. I've never had any facility for computer art. It's a difficult medium.
Laundry and art -- I'll have to give that some thought. I enjoy a neat home and have a lot of difficulty feeling peaceful in a messy house. I could not write with laundry on the floor. I would have to at least get it into a hamper.
Jack, I agree. Do you remember the Banana song?
Pearl - Thanks for telling me about The QC Report. It's great. Also, included in my 2 new recommendations are the recommendations from last May, including your site.
MiriamL - I recommend your new site too and hope people realize where to fnd you now.
The laundry thing is interesting. I have a friend who's into the arts who is extremely neat in a compulsive way and he clams that there are two categories of artists. The stereotype is more the type that's not bothered by the clothing on the floor. I like music, so I guess that's why I'm more the stereo type. Is this mic on?
Groan.
You should visit Austin for the annual Pun-off. I think we're the Southwestern Capital of Puns. (That link is a bit old, but the Pun-off still takes place every Spring.)
There was just an article in the NY Times that I meant to read but by the time I got around to it it was only in archives which talked about being neat vs. being messy. From what I heard the gist of it is that messy people are on the whole more creative and neat people spend a lot of time making things neat and organizing things into catagories. I think it was one of those "this flies in the face of conventional wisdom" articles and may have just been contrarian. Not sure, I didn't read it.
I adore that song, among others of Chapin's.
I always loved his story about his grandfather:
"My grandfather was a painter. He died at age 88. He illustrated Robert Frost's first two books of poetry. He was looking at me one day and he said, `Harry, there's two kinds of tired. There's good tired and there's bad tired. Ironically enough, bad tired can be a day in which you won, but you won other people's battles, you lived other people's days, other people's agendas and dreams, and when it's all over, there's very little you in there, and when you hit the hay at night, you toss and turn, you don't settle easy.
Good-tired, ironically enough, can be a day in which you lost, but you knew you fought your battles, you chased your dreams, you lived your days. And when you hit the hay at night, you settle easy, you sleep the sleep of the just, and you can say, "Take me away."
Harry, all my life I wanted to be a painter. So I painted. God, I would have loved to have been more successful. But I painted and painted. And I am good tired, and they can take me away."
Thanks Rachel. I don't know - there are creative people that are neat. I'm just not one of them.
It may or may not have really happened but "they" say that Rav Yisrael Salanter visited his son in Yeshiva and his son was learnng at the time. Rav Yisrael went to his room and said that from the fact that all was well ordered in his room he could tell that his son was doing well...
I'd actually lke to see the Times article.
Ilan you made my day with that quote. Very beautiful. Very profound. Actually, very painful too - because I don't fight my own fights as much as I hope one day to have the strength and courage to.
My top Chapin songs are -
Taxi and Cradle of course
and -
Flowers Are Red
Dirt Gets Under Your Fingernails
Circle
The Rock
Yours?
Yes I do.
Taxi and WOLD are two of my all time favorites as well.
I wonder if that prolific writer with the laundry strewn all about had kids. It's almost impossible to go very long without doing laundry in our house, because the kids run out of white socks, school shirts, or G-d forbid clean JEANS. Anyway, oddly enough, I just blogged about laundry a week or so ago. :-)
http://annenotations.blogspot.com/2006/12/my-inner-june-cleaver.html
Glad I made your day. That quote is actually a track from his 2-disc "Gold Medal Collection."
I really like The Only Was One Choice, that 14-minute-long whopper:
"Strum your guitar, sing it kid
Just write about your feelings,
not the things you never did.
Inexperience, it once accursed me
But your youth is no handicap; it's what makes you thirsty."
Go to http://www.poofcat.com/verse4.html
for a great poem (I know you like poems) and the perfect song to match it. Trust me, this relates to this post, relates to the question of cleaning.
(For 'We'd Meet In The Refrain')
I know I'm way, way late in blog-time; for what it's worth, this discussion reminded me of Anne Lamott saying that in the beginning of her life as a writer she couldn't write if there was a plate in her sink, but later in her writing career, she could write even if there was a corpse in her sink.
Thanks Jack. Harry had a lot of thoughtful songs indeed.
Thanks Anne, I don't know about that writer, but I imagine family makes it harder/different in oh so many ways.
Thanks Ilan for the additional quote. He had a lot of great quotes. Any more you want to add are welcome.
Anonymous, thanks for the link.
Maayan - that was a pertinent, appropriate quote. She's great. Bird By Bird is a classic.
I'm not a neat freak, but I am bothered by laundry on the floor - that's one thing that I really like being in it's place. But I do consider myself the creative type, because I really enjoy painting and sewing and decorating with lots of color all over my apartment (and oh yeah, a bit of writing as well). I always find it interesting when the descriptions of artists are so flightly and wild and ungrounded. My father is an exceptional artist and he is one of the most practical people I know (though not especially neat). I don't think you can generalize so easily, like in most things in life.
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