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May. 4th, 2003 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cabbitzillaYou walk in the room and you're wearing a frown,
You reach for the shelf and cradle it down
The Music Box Dancer, what does it prove?
Only that you need to see a statue that moves.
A tutu of satin, bordered with lace,
Slender lines, agile legs, a wonderland face.
Her beauty is balanced, an immovable pose,
Eternally destined to remain on her toes.
Music Box Dancer, she is only a toy,
Project upon her your dreams of wanting life's joy;
She's perched on her stand, and never will part,
A final gaze upon her, now the music will start.
You wind the doll up, it's nostalgic because
You've been here before, so give one final pause
To dream of the future, to reflect on the past,
Music Box Dancer start your whirling at last.
The room fills with music, such a cute song,
Watching her go 'round and 'round, she's where she belongs;
Bring joy to the watchers, spreading a glow,
Whenever wound up, she'll put on a good show.
Music Box Dancer, do you think or believe
She could step off her box if she wanted to leave?
So easy it is, twirl around with such grace,
Staying in her circle, she remains in one place.
Such a brief moment, a small time to spend,
The dancing will slow soon, the music will end;
In real life we're plastic, nature's unfair,
How can we breathe life, how can we share
The knowledge and insights hidden in tombs,
We're all Music Box Dancers all alone in our rooms;
We sit on our shelves where objects reside,
We don't allow the music to get right inside.
Music Box Dancer's now completely alone,
No winder or no listener, because nobody's home;
How long before someone will re-wind the spring?
The room will now be witness; and silence can't sing.
...Music Box Dancer
...Original Piano Music by Frank Mills
...Lyrical Accompaniment by Norman Pollack, 3/17/1981
The poem and the midi file (an -excellent- midi file, might I add) can be found HERE.
I... need to get back on track getting the weight off. The sooner I can get my weight stabilized around the 250 mark, the sooner I can start trying to ditch my 23 year old cigarette habit... and the sooner I can begin trying to retrain and repair my voice.
In the spring of 1984, the small fusion ensemble that I was nominally the lead for did a last minute fill-in performance for an anniversary party being held at our local American Legion lodge. We'd finished the sets we'd promised, and most of the others had already packed out and vanished, leaving the keyboard player and I to hold the fort as we finished packing up... and were asked for another song. We looked at each other in panic, and he mouthed the word 'Dancer' to me. It was something we'd been noodling about with, but had never actually -performed-... but it was the only thing that we had anywhere near 'ready' that just the two of us could pull off. I shrugged, a bit nervous about -singing- in public; my role was the frontman and trombone player, and the singing was normally handled by Julie.
We uncased his 'board again, set up, took a deep breath, and launched into it. The world stopped. I remember the sensation... everything around me crystalized into glass, and there simply was nothing else but the lyrics that spilled from my heart. When we finished, the hubbub of the party had utterly vanished. Utter silence washed over Paul and I, and I thought my heart was going to shatter. And then the applause started. We were both astounded... when I turned to look at him, he was -staring- at me as if I'd suddenly become something vastly different from the bandgeek he knew. We got praised, we got tipped, and we were begged for full twenty minutes to 'do it again'. Paul agreed almost immediately, and spent the time trying to help me get the 'deer in the headlights' look off my face. It touched me so deeply... I wasn't sure I could survive doing it again. My voice cracked twice during the second rendition, and I was crying by the time I finished. Paul looked as worried as I'd ever seen him... I think he was afraid I was going to keel over on the spot.
We finished. I got myself under enough control that I'd stopped crying and shaking, and was helping get everything packed back up when an elderly woman stepped up to my side and tugged on my sleeve. We found out that this woman was the true organizer of this gathering, a party to celebrate her daughter's and her son's weddings, held on the same month and day three years apart. Found out that she'd -not- been pleased by the last minute substitution of 'a band of young rapscallions' for the Swing band that'd originally been booked. And then she apologized to us, and handed us each an additional check for $50. We were stunned. The entire 8 piece band had been booked for the total sum of $80 for the evening... $10 a person covered our personal gasoline costs, and we were highschool kids with no real sense of money. But she wanted us to know how much we'd made the party a success, and how pleased she was with our closing performance.
As things turned out, that night turned out to be Spring Dream's last gig. Paul and I were accused of trying to cut the others out of 'their fair share'... even after we'd -both- volunteered first thing to divvy it all up like everything else. It caused a feud that destroyed four friendships, the band, and a goodly chunk of my senior year of High School. Aside from various choir performances, I've not sung publicly since. Tonight, in the course of my conversation with Ryn-chan, she mentioned the tune... it hit memories long buried, and I burbled something about lyrics. She'd never seen or heard lyrics for it, so I went off on one of my infamous snipe hunts via Google and located it for her, which brought back the rest of the memories.
It brought back the urge to sing again. But there're things that have to be done first... the things I listed off earlier. For now... it's a lovely dream, and the sensations I felt when I sang this song so long ago now make sense; in a way, I've always been the Music Box Dancer...
~Ellie-chan
You reach for the shelf and cradle it down
The Music Box Dancer, what does it prove?
Only that you need to see a statue that moves.
A tutu of satin, bordered with lace,
Slender lines, agile legs, a wonderland face.
Her beauty is balanced, an immovable pose,
Eternally destined to remain on her toes.
Music Box Dancer, she is only a toy,
Project upon her your dreams of wanting life's joy;
She's perched on her stand, and never will part,
A final gaze upon her, now the music will start.
You wind the doll up, it's nostalgic because
You've been here before, so give one final pause
To dream of the future, to reflect on the past,
Music Box Dancer start your whirling at last.
The room fills with music, such a cute song,
Watching her go 'round and 'round, she's where she belongs;
Bring joy to the watchers, spreading a glow,
Whenever wound up, she'll put on a good show.
Music Box Dancer, do you think or believe
She could step off her box if she wanted to leave?
So easy it is, twirl around with such grace,
Staying in her circle, she remains in one place.
Such a brief moment, a small time to spend,
The dancing will slow soon, the music will end;
In real life we're plastic, nature's unfair,
How can we breathe life, how can we share
The knowledge and insights hidden in tombs,
We're all Music Box Dancers all alone in our rooms;
We sit on our shelves where objects reside,
We don't allow the music to get right inside.
Music Box Dancer's now completely alone,
No winder or no listener, because nobody's home;
How long before someone will re-wind the spring?
The room will now be witness; and silence can't sing.
...Music Box Dancer
...Original Piano Music by Frank Mills
...Lyrical Accompaniment by Norman Pollack, 3/17/1981
The poem and the midi file (an -excellent- midi file, might I add) can be found HERE.
I... need to get back on track getting the weight off. The sooner I can get my weight stabilized around the 250 mark, the sooner I can start trying to ditch my 23 year old cigarette habit... and the sooner I can begin trying to retrain and repair my voice.
In the spring of 1984, the small fusion ensemble that I was nominally the lead for did a last minute fill-in performance for an anniversary party being held at our local American Legion lodge. We'd finished the sets we'd promised, and most of the others had already packed out and vanished, leaving the keyboard player and I to hold the fort as we finished packing up... and were asked for another song. We looked at each other in panic, and he mouthed the word 'Dancer' to me. It was something we'd been noodling about with, but had never actually -performed-... but it was the only thing that we had anywhere near 'ready' that just the two of us could pull off. I shrugged, a bit nervous about -singing- in public; my role was the frontman and trombone player, and the singing was normally handled by Julie.
We uncased his 'board again, set up, took a deep breath, and launched into it. The world stopped. I remember the sensation... everything around me crystalized into glass, and there simply was nothing else but the lyrics that spilled from my heart. When we finished, the hubbub of the party had utterly vanished. Utter silence washed over Paul and I, and I thought my heart was going to shatter. And then the applause started. We were both astounded... when I turned to look at him, he was -staring- at me as if I'd suddenly become something vastly different from the bandgeek he knew. We got praised, we got tipped, and we were begged for full twenty minutes to 'do it again'. Paul agreed almost immediately, and spent the time trying to help me get the 'deer in the headlights' look off my face. It touched me so deeply... I wasn't sure I could survive doing it again. My voice cracked twice during the second rendition, and I was crying by the time I finished. Paul looked as worried as I'd ever seen him... I think he was afraid I was going to keel over on the spot.
We finished. I got myself under enough control that I'd stopped crying and shaking, and was helping get everything packed back up when an elderly woman stepped up to my side and tugged on my sleeve. We found out that this woman was the true organizer of this gathering, a party to celebrate her daughter's and her son's weddings, held on the same month and day three years apart. Found out that she'd -not- been pleased by the last minute substitution of 'a band of young rapscallions' for the Swing band that'd originally been booked. And then she apologized to us, and handed us each an additional check for $50. We were stunned. The entire 8 piece band had been booked for the total sum of $80 for the evening... $10 a person covered our personal gasoline costs, and we were highschool kids with no real sense of money. But she wanted us to know how much we'd made the party a success, and how pleased she was with our closing performance.
As things turned out, that night turned out to be Spring Dream's last gig. Paul and I were accused of trying to cut the others out of 'their fair share'... even after we'd -both- volunteered first thing to divvy it all up like everything else. It caused a feud that destroyed four friendships, the band, and a goodly chunk of my senior year of High School. Aside from various choir performances, I've not sung publicly since. Tonight, in the course of my conversation with Ryn-chan, she mentioned the tune... it hit memories long buried, and I burbled something about lyrics. She'd never seen or heard lyrics for it, so I went off on one of my infamous snipe hunts via Google and located it for her, which brought back the rest of the memories.
It brought back the urge to sing again. But there're things that have to be done first... the things I listed off earlier. For now... it's a lovely dream, and the sensations I felt when I sang this song so long ago now make sense; in a way, I've always been the Music Box Dancer...
~Ellie-chan
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Date: 2007-07-02 04:57 pm (UTC)