Come and Get Your Love

So. 

I was at the gym, working out by hitting the heavy bag as I do in the winter when the outside world is grey and nasty. As I pummeled, what should come up on my iPod shuffle but the song "Come and Get Your Love." 

 Yeah, bag, come and get your love. Pow! Wham! 

It was the perfect comic book dialogue.  My face broke into a big smirk, like a goon.  If anyone saw, they probably thought:  What is wrong with her?

Then, of course, I had to relate it to writing.  What we hear in our heads makes us do the things we do, and when no one else can hear that, we appear out of sync.  We're happy when we should be sad, or calm when others expect furious. 

What are the emotional soundtracks we play to accompany our own lives?

What is your character hearing that no one else does? 

Both interesting ways to enter into a novel.

P.S.  I also inherited my daughter's hand-me down iPod mini, which I can now use to invent alter-egos in the car.  I'm dangerous. 

Poetry Friday: Wallace Stevens and Music

At my son's Music Honor Society induction last night, each new member had to perform a short piece. What struck me was how few of the young musicians enjoyed it. Out of about thirty kids, only about four seemed comfortable, even the ones with obvious talent. Why is that?

It was obviously horrific for some band members, like the trombone or tuba players, who I could almost hear thinking: if I wanted to play solo, I wouldn't be in...DUH!...a band!

Other highlights:

The gallant boy who offered to share his music stand with the girl beside him. Only she was almost two feet shorter than he was.

The girl in the fleece vest who burst forth with an operatic voice which she wrapped around French words while slouching and flipping the bangs out of her eyes. (Please, someone! Tell her what a miracle her voice is! And show her how to use it!)

Another girl sang "Killing Me Softly" like a forty-year old chanteuse. Except for the part where the soundtrack erupted into rap. But I liked it.

A friend of my son's had an entire entourage to carry his amp, cords, guitar, shirt, hat...and then he totally justified it by playing an original piece in which his fingers crawled up and down the frets like a frantic spider.

I'm not a musician. But I love watching how music bestows unreasonable gifts at random, on the awkward and graceful alike. It's the closest thing to unconditional love I've ever witnessed.

Here's Wallace Stevens, from Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction: It Must Give Pleasure

To sing jubilas at exact, accustomed times,

To be crested and wear the mane of a multitude

And so, as part, to exult with its great throat,

To speak of joy and to sing of it, borne on

The shoulders of joyous men, to feel the heart

That is the common, the bravest fundament,

This is a facile exercise. Jerome

Begat the tubas and the fire-wind strings,

The golden fingers picking dark-blue air:

Read the rest here.

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Kelly at Big A, little a.