July in Madison brings the Art Fair on the Square and a little inspiration for a new tune.
You bought her painting at the Art Fair
hung it on your wall
took the card with her phone number
but you're afraid to call
how do you talk to an artist, don't know what to say
so you sit there with her painting and waste another day
You dial the number your heart is pounding
then you place the call
she doesn't answer, you leave no message
you're feeling two foot tall
how do you talk to an artist, don't know what to say
so you just sit alone and twitter
and waste another day
On our latest trip to tokyo in April I finally found a chance to capture some images of train stations to match up with a short song called "Waiting for a Train" posted in a couple versions previously. Here is the remixed version complete with images from the trip.
Finally getting caught up on things like Vox after an April trip to Tokyo that took weeks to plan, and then weeks to decompress and get back to normal here in Wisconsin. We spent most of our time in the Tokyo area with the exception of a day trip by bullet train to northern Honshu to view the cherry blossoms in Kakunodate since it was too late to see many in Tokyo. While in Tokyo we stayed two nights in the heart of Tokyo, near Hibiya Park and Shimbashi Station. I managed to get some rainy night shots of Shimbashi to capture scenes from another stop (G08) on the Ginza Line with my goal to visit all 19 stops eventually.
Time to start the New Year with some new material which has been percolating on the back burner for awhile. It's a sort of "love is all you need" song with semi-serious social commentary. Anyway, it goes like this:
V1 The snow is falling, the north wind's calling
like a banshee in the night
don't mind the weather if we're together
curled up by the firelight
so let it snow and let it blow
everything will be alright
you got me and I got you and life is good tonight
V2 We're in recession, might be depression
the whole world's up side down
ain't got no money and that ain't funny
when the landlord comes around
but let it snow and let it blow
everything will be alright
you got me and I got you and life is good tonight
When I find myself lacking an inspiration to start a new song, I often turn to my camera and set out to capture some fresh images. When I can't find words, I like to substitute images to fit a simple chord progression. This is what came out of an early morning trip downtown on a chilly Saturday morning to witness the sunrise over Lake Monona (when I probably should have been sleeping in after a long work week) and take a walk around one of the last outdoor farmers markets of the season.
I grew up with train tracks running right behind my house. It was mostly freight trains passing at all hours of the day, but sometimes passenger trains would come through, especially on weekends after a big Badger home football game. The freight yards were just down the street and as kids we would sneak down there to climb on the freight cars and pretend we were hoboes bound for distant cities. Later, when I joined the Army, I got my first real train ride from the induction center in Milwaukee to St Louis to catch a bus to Ft Leonard Wood, Missouri for basic training. After electronic repair training near Boston, the Army sent me to northern Japan where I was surprised to see old steam engines still running through the Hokkaido countryside at the same time bullet trains had been recently introduced between Tokyo and Osaka. Over the years, we have used the JR local trains heavily in the Tokyo metro area, and bullet trains to reach Sendai, Nagano, and Hiroshima in complete comfort that I definitely prefer to flying. With this personal background, and trains inspiring a lot of well known songs in general, it seemed only natural that I try to write a train song recently when nothing else seemed to work.
So it started with a simple image of a foreign traveler waiting for a bullet train on the platform at Tokyo Station and a journey about to begin. The traveler is captivated by a girl also waiting on the platform, but not sure how to make contact in a strange land. In the end, this song is really about finding ways to communicate in a different culture, and the personal journey that can lead to, so the train is incidental. Once the song concept was formed, the words took over but I couldn't decide what chord structure to use, and have tried three different approaches so far. Version 1 is something I won't share at this point, but versions 2 and 3 are a strange contrast in styles that surprised me. They are both in the same key, but the phrasing ends up much different to fit track 2 into a simple 4 bar repeating D/A/G/G chord pattern, while track 3 is a more conventional 10 bar sequence of D/D/D/Bm/Bm/D/G/A/D/D. The lyrics vary slightly from one version to the other. Comments are always welcome.
I was standing on the platform at Tokyo Station waiting for the Shinkansen
she was standing nearby and I wished that I could meet her as that bullet train pulled in
I picked up my bag and my konbini bento (convenience store prepackaged lunch), I got on board that train
my wish was granted, she sat down beside me as we headed out across the Kanto Plain
I said "sumimasen, my name is Peter, where are you going to?"
She said "wakaranai, I don't speak English" now what in the world was I supposed to do
so I reached in my bag and found my jibiki (dictionary) and pointed to the word for blue
I said this is how I feel in your language, if I cannot talk with you.
She smiled and said "arigato, hanashitai, I would like to talk with you"
so we shared my jibiki and communicated in the only way we knew
when we reached Kyoto she said "I must go, but please come and visit me"
and so we parted but that's how it all started as we shared my jibiki
This song has been a work in progress for at least a couple of years and still needs work, but lacking any new inspiration again lately, I decided to remix and finally post it now 4 years after my first visit to the place that inspired it. In early November of 2004, we took the Shinkansen out of Tokyo bound for Nagano to visit a local artist we had met on an exchange visit to Madison a couple of years earlier. We knew Nagano only from its exposure on TV as the site of the 1998 Winter Olympics which meant we knew it only superficially and dressed in snow which was not the case when we visited. Our Japanese friends gave us a tour of the local countryside, including a moon viewing hut where a well known haiku poet (perhaps Basho but not sure) had once stayed and composed a poem. The next day, I did my usual early morning explore of the downtown with my camera and caught a bus for Zenkoji, the legendary 1300 year old Buddhist temple which claims millions of visitors each year. I have seen more than a few temples in Japan and this one was not especially impressive at first sight, but somehow it has stayed with me more than any other. Part of that is due to the friends we have in the area, but maybe part is the aura of various legends surrounding this old temple, where many Japanese go to mark their 60th birthday (kanreki, marking the end of the 5th cycle of the 12 year Chinese calendar) which I was approaching at the time. The other appealing quality of the temple is that it welcomes people of all beliefs.
The song itself is about searching, sometimes in the wrong places (Kabukicho), and sometimes in unexpected places, for meaning in life, spiritual or otherwise. One of the popular legends about Zenkoji tells of an old woman who chased an ox to the temple to retrieve a piece of cloth caught on the ox's horn. The woman fell asleep and Buddha appeared to her in a dream, causing her to see the light and convert to a pious life. The expression "I followed an ox to Zenkoji" is apparently still used when something good happens unexpectedly. A bullet train was the modern day ox which led me to Zenkoji and some unexpected experiences and memories that have stayed with me ever since.
V1: I was born in the Midwest and raised a Lutheran
read the good book in Sunday school
learned my lessons in confirmation
tried to live the golden rule
Bridge 1: Now here I am, in Tokyo
how I got here, don't really know
lost my way in Kabukicho
just trying to find which way to go
V2: went to college and graduated
took a job in Milwaukee
never had much cause to believe in
anything I couldn't touch or see
B1 repeat
B2: going to go to Nagano in the morning, going to leave at 9:27
this boy from Wisconsin will ride the Shinkansen to see Zenkoji again
By fate or karma, I was working on a new song this week when the word came that Paul Newman had passed on Friday, the 26th. The song in process somehow changed focus completely and ended up as my humble tribute to this icon of film, charitable causes, and humanity in general. It's a simple two verse acoustic piece referencing one of his best known roles as Butch Cassidy, and one of his lesser known but memorable roles as Reggie Dunlop in Slapshot. Paul Newman may be gone, but Butch and Reggie and Cool Hand Luke will live on.
I went to see you in the movies
you and the Sundance Kid
you made your last stand
you were the cool hand
in everything you did
now your blue eyes fade to gray
but Butch and Sundance will never fade away
I remember Reggie Dunlop
still playing hockey like a kid
you had your own plan
you were your own man
in everything you did
now your blue eyes fade to gray
but Reggie Dunlop will never fade away
Almost 6 months ago I posted a one verse track which was really still an incomplete idea about a shy guy on a train platform who sees a girl but doesn't have the nerve to approach her before she boards her train and is gone. It now has a 2nd verse and the words were changed to add a smile exchanged, but still unspoken words, and then the train is gone. Verse 2 describes lost sleep and regrets with just that smile to hang on to. But maybe sometimes, just a smile is all you need. Besides an extra verse, the new version has a little more tempo at 120 bpm and is a half step up in key from A to B flat. Feedback is always welcome. The original is also attached as reference.
V1: Saw her there, waiting for a train
she smiled at me, and so I did the same
we did not speak so I did not get her name
now the train is gone; just a smile lingers on
V2: I could not sleep, tossing in my bed
her perfect smile was stuck inside my head
so many things I wish that I had said
now the train is gone; just a smile lingers on
Seems like I am still reworking old material to try to take what seemed like a good idea and apply some newer tricks on the production side to give it a fresh sound. Not sure I really succeeded on this one, but it still seems like a good exercise for whatever I learn in the process. The song itself revisits the passion of songwriting from the perspective of someone who may have given up the dream of a full time career in music to get a day job and pay the rent, but never really surrenders the dream and keeps writing songs in their head while "sweeping the floor" or whatever. That probably sounds a lot like a bad script for a B movie, complete with a misfit artist serving coffee at the local cafe and encouraging the poor boy to follow his dream, which leads him to write songs inspired by her semi-hip art and win a record deal. Fortunately, I am not looking for a role in that fantasy film since I have a really good day job that I actually enjoy (90% of the time) but I have rediscovered the pure pleasure of trying to combine some well worn cliches with a few over worked chords, married to a simple melody, and strapped loosely to a basic rythym to produce a 2-3 minute record of my own fundamental existence and left handed observations on this life we lead.
Enough existential editorializing. See if this works for you, or not.
V1: sold my free time for a day job
traded my guitar for a broom
now I'm sweeping the floor
but still dreaming of more
and my mind is escaping this room
might as well be on the moon
V2 I'm pledging my days for a paycheck
but some days just get pretty long
while I'm marking time
I keep working on rhyme
and in my mind I 'm writing a song
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humbletree said:
not sure how you stumbled on this, but thanks for the feedback read more
on waiting for a train -
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humbletree said:
thanks. at least you were able to meet and see him in person while the rest of us know him... read more
on Farewell to the Cool Hand
on Akiba (YouTube version)