The sweat stung his eyes as he wiped his forearm across his grimy brow, shifted his weight to the broom he’d been using to sweep in front of the little bodega, and looked up toward the 7th floor penthouse terrace.

For a few moments that steamy summer night, the city was quiet and he heard melodic laughter skitter across the rippled surface of some subdued piano jazz. It sounded like a real piano and he knew from delivering there once that they had a big white one shaped like an ocean wave.

A handful of people drifted out to the edge of the terrace and he saw her once again. She leaned back against the terrace wall as she seemed to listen to someone he couldn’t see, her pale hair drifting in the summer air as though in the languid waters of a rowing pond.

In the apartment over the bodega, he could hear his kid sister suddenly rolling through the city’s radio stations on her big old portable aimlessly, looking for somewhere she’d never been before.

(C)2001, TK Major

So, How Does It Look from the Stars?

I’ve been up to your penthouse but
I… I was afraid to look down
I’ve been all around the world
but I’m only at home on my own side of town

I’ve been up all night
trying to find
the right way to come down
I been inside out and I know all about
the emptiness all around

everything happens for reasons
but we never get to find out what they are
from way down here it all looks pretty big
so how does it look from the stars

you laid it all out
and I wanted so much
to just pick up
what you put down

I can taste it right now
but still somehow
I’ve finally found
the power to shine on

everything happens for reasons
but we never get to find out what they are
from way down here it all looks pretty big
so how does it look from the stars

(C) 2001 TK Major

Fans of this song take note: this is among the songs I plan on revisitng a time or two during AYoS, so I hope you won’t feel shortchanged by the not-quite-there version above or by my reprinting the vignette I wrote in 2001 to promo the online release of the ‘studio version’ of the song.

In fact, next time, I plan on writing a bit about Dead End, the play (and movie) that helped inspire this song. Recently, I was lucky enough to see a big budget revival of the stage play and it was pretty amazing. Think looming, chaotic tenement stage set and — get this — a wharf over a huge tank standing in for the East River. Anyhow, that’s next time.

By the way, if you listen to any of the studio versions of AYoS songs, I would recommend you listen to this one (or perhaps the studio version of “Baby, I Just Got the Blues“). If you’re not familiar with my (one man) band one blue nine, you may be surprised.