This song has always escaped my grasp in the past and this time is no exception.

Let’s call this recorded version a sketch and I’ll promise to come back to this song and get a proper version — say, one with all the lyrics — posted a ways down the road.

It was the first waltz I wrote. And that wildly exotic time signature used to flummox this poor, ignorant ex-punk rocker… you may hear some echoes of that discomfiture in this… sketch.

Only the Dance

Partners will come, partners will go
waltzing off into the past
the music goes on, long after we’re gone
in the end there is only the dance

Music plays from far away
let’s give it one more chance
why should we stumble, why should we fall
you know you know how to dance

I stand in the middle of the everything
and I’m hooked up to it all
I tried so long to be everything
and now I’m nothing at all

Music plays from far away
let’s give it one more chance
why should we stumble, why should we fall
you know you know how to dance

The echo of that music box
the one that you got in Spain
I hear it at the river’s edge
and I hear it in the rain
I hear it in the whisper of
the evening wind in the trees
I sing it in the thunderstorms
and I scream it down on my knees

music plays from far away
let’s give it one more chance
why should we stumble, why should we fall
you know you know how to dance

______________________

blog within a blog…

I found out yesterday that my favorite DJ, Sam Fields of KKJZ, my hometown radio station (formerly known as KLON to jazz aficionadi around the world) passed away midweek. Sam’s voice was big and cool and calm. His knowledge was deep and nuanced. He wasn’t a flashy hipster like his (equally beloved) late colleague Chuck Niles — but he was quietly hip and very cool. I miss the heck out him, already.