I was awake very late last night skyping with Steven to finish our holiday song for the Lincoln Center Songbook Holiday Concert. Stanley Wayne Mathis is singing the song (swoon) which is not about Christmas, but New Year's Eve. And what happened last night while I was revising the song from a younger person's point of view to a more mature person's point of view made me think... "This. This is why I love songwriting."
I changed one line-- one word, really-- and it cast a new light on all the previous lyrics. It made them better. It turned the song into a kind of holiday song I don't think people have heard too many of before. Instead of being a bit of a tongue and cheek about how New Year's Eve is always this big anticlimactic production and the longing for something that's actually exhilarating, it's now a song about a sober person trying to stay that way on New Year's Eve.
When I sent it back to Steven, I was nervous (but secretly, I knew he'd dig it. That's what happens when you've been working together for a decade.) He sang through it and then typed, "Whoa. You're right. It just turns." It's amazing how it gets to the point where it even stops being your song (or story or play) and just starts being the song it wants to be. It became something with its own soul and the ability to just break my heart. Because I could imagine who this character Stanley would play in the song is and what he'd been through. The story didn't belong to me anymore, but to the character who will sing it. That's the magic.
If you're in NYC on December 13th, head to beautiful Lincoln Center and see for yourself. It's free!
What still is my story is everything that happened during this watershed year. Thanks to fancy facebook technology, I can remember through all my updates throughout 2010. Here's to 2011!
No comments:
Post a Comment