SONG-MUSINGS FROM THE PAST

I’ve been writing about song writing for a long time. Here are a few notes from the past - MOLLY’S SONG & PASSION...

Molly's Song

By Barbara Lewis, Oct. 2001

My music and I have often communed with nature.

I was thinking about this as I raked leaves on the "lawn" of our semi-wilderness lake house. We were fortunate to be there for a few days recently, removed from city troubles in miles, if not in heart.

I was raking a deep bed of leaves onto a flat pine-needle-strewn opening in the woods where, several years before, I had placed three fat tree stumps to use as chairs. They still marked the spots where I sat to rehearse my one-woman show which required a lot of space for movement. (In the city, I rehearsed on a small stage in a theatre.)

On warm, quiet days that summer, I sat with my back to the lake, facing the deep woods as I sang and talked and "danced" my way thru this physically challenging piece of theatre. Animals, as curious as we humans are it would seem, emerged from the woods now and then to see what the racket was.

One of the most curious was a woodchuck that came out to look, then ran away, then came out again and ran away and on and on... When I sang, I could hear the birds whistling even more loudly than usual, as if to drown me out. And some of the crows from a flock that live in the trees near our house invariably showed up when I was rehearsing. They shrieked at one another high above me, perhaps with hilarity.

I have also, probably foolishly, walked out on the dock when the lake was freezing, to listen to and to sing with the haunting ancient sound the lake makes when air is trapped under the ice and water is freezing around it in long icy tubes.

My favorite time with animals and music happened in Vermont. My husband, Nicholas and I lived in a house built high on a cliff facing the Green Mountains. Our first day in the 3-level "tree-house," we met a young raccoon that became a good friend over the four years we spent there.

She often brought her kits (4 or 5 of them each year) over the roof and onto the deck to visit with us and to make mayhem. We called her Molly. And she came almost daily for a visit, with or without her kits.

All the songs I wrote during that time passed through her wise and patient ears. She would sit on the porch, near the open screen door, with her head cocked to one side while I sang some early, awkward versions of songs. I always sang in my full voice, which makes some dogs howl, but didn't seem to bother Molly.

She heard the songs again as they gradually took form and sounded better. Always alert, and interested, Molly was never openly judgemental. Although her sometime boyfriend, Wally, was not so kind on occasion.

I know these encounters have affected my music, though it's hard to pin-point exactly how. They were deeply felt experiences and surely they account for some aspect of my musical style, whether I write a song in New York City or seated in front of a quiet lake.

I had a strong affection for Molly. She could be a fierce animal when confronted with strange members of her own kind, or by unruly kits. But she was always gentle with us. She remained wild during our friendship. Still, she always came for a visit when I called her name out over the balcony to the woods below. I'm sure her memory of the raisin-filled Shreddie treats we offerred was helpful in making a decision to come when called.

Before we left the house in Vermont, I wrote a song about her. Here are the lyrics:

Molly's Song

Maytime in the mountains, trees are eager in their growiing
Endless singing of the birds, consulting and consoling
Flowers blooming at their ease, content within the season
Life becoming as it will, no need for rhyme or reason
Rhyme or reason.

High up in the mountains, Molly lives in her own time
Simple pleasures carry her, a summer day, a starry night
A bunch of supple columbine
Independent, self-assured, she strolls the forest daily
Carries with her all she needs, an open heart, her place in time,
She knows freedom.

Summer is the season that she teaches all she knows
Children listen to her song,
Haunting the melody, eternal sounding tone...
Plunging into memory, no wisdom is withheld
Offerring the answers that send them
Send them careening, into their freedom

Freedom isn't something you can master like a crafstman
Freedom is a state of heart, it's laughter and passion

Snow upon the mountains, she is quiet, in repose
Unquestioning she sleeps alone, content with all she knows
Morning into evening, no sighing over yesterdays
Living out her seasons from moment to moment
This is her freedom, her freedom

Freedom is a state of heart you lose
If you don't use it truly
Freedom, freedom, freedom

Passion

People often ask me, incredulously, where on earth do I get ideas for songs. After all, they note, the lyrics and tunes usually are not about relationships, like many of the hits we hear on radio today. Nor are they about typical kinds of loss, though there is certainly emotional pain in some of my music.

When I begin to create a song, I usually have a movie-like drama playing in my head. I see a person or several people living through a dramatic event; the beginning of a journey, a startling moment of discovery, a haunting encounter with a stranger. The characters are fictional but the events they experience have a powerful effect on me. I feel the passion of their discoveries.

Sometimes drama develops from a real-life event. When the story of Hara's Quest was born, I was with my husband on Captiva Island, Florida.

We were alone at sundown on a long stretch of white sandy beach. It was hot, even for a summer evening on Captiva Island - around 95 degrees. The humid air shimmered with heat. We watched transfixed as a Great Blue Heron, tall and slender, strode down the sand to stand just a foot away from us. It turned and looked gravely out to sea. We followed its gaze and saw several dolphins glide in close to shore. The ocean water was still, like a quiet lake. The dolphins' eyes were bright.

The animals watched us. We watched them. The Great Blue stood by like a sentinel or a gallant interpreter of our close encounter. I felt as though time stood still. When the meeting ended and we once again were walking down the beach alone, the name "Hara" drifted into my mind. I knew then this woman would be the subject of my next group of songs: that she would take a long journey out to sea, and that dolphins would play a pivotal role in her life. I knew too that her journey would teach me a great deal.

Of course, moving from this magical moment to the completed group of Hara's Quest songs took a number of steps and many months. (See the Hara story in Hara's Quest.) But the event on the beach fueled my passion to guide Hara through an ocean journey.

Song writing has given me the chance to explore some of the most intriguing questions about who we are and where we are going. I have written about what it might feel like to be guided to the past by dolphins; how long-hidden memories can surface during a deep-body massage; how difficult it is to remain true to oneself and one's dreams; what the first humans may have heard when they began their long march to the future.

SONG-MUSINGS FROM THE PAST

Saturday, October 28, 2006