I have always been a closet romantic. I enjoy the sentimental side of things.
As a pre-teen, listening to my little panasonic transistor radio every night late into the night, it was almost all love songs, and the music meant everything to me. (Not the love-song lyrics necessarily – I remembering recoiling in 10-year-old horror at the saccharine “La La La La La Means I Love you ” by the DelFonics. But most love songs I blithely took in).
My teen years were simmered in Zappa, who sneered at love songs. I learned to sneer, too. I vowed never to write a sappy love song. I laughed at love songs, ha-ha!
Sure enough, in my writing for The Bobs, I kept love at arms length. Well, more than arm’s length. And even when I thought I might try my hand at writing something romantic, it just didn’t work for me. I was more comfortable being funny. Yet, I still wanted to write beautiful music. Even when the lyrics avoided romanticism, the music to my songs tended to be consonant, not acidic.
When I write for the theatre or for film, where one writes for a character or a situation, I am able to explore my romantic tendencies.
For I am a romantic. I love beauty for its own sake. In the past I loved music and art that was acrobatic and virtuosic and acerbic and anti-sentimental, but now I crave music and art that tries for beauty. I still like acerbic. I don’t like grossly sentimental things. I’m bored by virtuosity. But I love good music. Honest music, I like to call it.
Two Hands? It’s my first time giving in fully to my romantic side. It’s not written for a play or a character or a commission – it’s written to please myself. And St. Cecilia. And anyone who cares to listen in.