How do you know to ask for medium salsa at the taco truck?
Well, because one time you got that hot salsa1, and now you know better.
Imagine, though, a life of only pico de gallo, nothing ever more than “mild.” This is a bland existence, a life of risk resistance where nothing ventured is nothing gained. We who seek do not seek out a life like this.
The trick, of course, is that you’ve got to calibrate correctly. And calibration cannot be properly done without finding the extreme on each side of the midline. Me, I tend to swing wildly from one end to the other, and if either pole is not appropriately pushed out wide enough, well, then I don’t end up in the middle.
In other words, you have to overshoot something in order to know you haven’t undershot it.
It’s a lesson I’ve been learning lately as I push into some new territory.
As you may have noticed, I don’t tend to write a lot of overtly hopeful songs. But one of my favorite tracks on the new record is a song that came in one of those moments of peak creation: I did not “try” to write it; it simply arrived – lyrics, melody, and all – in a few quiet moments of late pandemic tranquility sitting alone at my piano.
“Someday, we’ll come back to you. Someday, maybe some afternoon. Maybe a Sunday, maybe a crescent moon, just know that one day, maybe someday soon.”
It’s hopeful, heartwarming, something you could dance to aka the kind of thing I rarely write, and so I was excited: not quite disco, not quite Motown, but something in between, say, “For Once In My Life” and “Be Thankful For What You’ve Got”2. I’ve always loved this kind of music but never ventured to make it myself. To stretch artistically is essential – but to stretch too far, a disaster — authenticity being the thing which brings us to art in the first place. So, how do you find that sweet spot in between?
Well, I got about two-thirds of the way into recording it, my kick ass band as tight as could be with some throwback percussion and a bit of modern drum programming thrown in, a mellotron playing strings, and a few twinkling, digital synths making it light and floaty. We were kicking around some fresh ideas for the instrumental section when Justin, my wonderful producer, said, “we’re starting to really push the line.”
“Which line?” I said, knowing in general what he meant but wanting more specifics.
“Add some horns here and it might really wind up…”
“Like disco?” I interrupted.
“Like roller rink disco,” he replied.
We don’t want roller rink disco.
Roller Rink Disco is the bridge too far, the place where something steps out beyond what it was meant to be. In this case, the song is not meant for mere saccharine uplift. It is uplifting – but born from loss (we can’t “come back to you” unless we already left). And I’m the guy who used to think “all happy songs are boring,” so to take it to a place without any sharp edges, where we’re clapping on the 1 and 3 as we take a final lap at family skating hour…that just ain’t me.
Bowie said it’s when you step out just past where your feet touch the ocean floor, that’s where the good stuff gets made. We sampled a few horns to see how it felt – and, in fact, it did not feel right. But that’s how I knew we’d found our upper bound. And I no longer feared not being upbeat enough.
So walk out boldly. Never shy away from giving it a try. We all need to know where the deep end begins.
-DR
Or perhaps, as in my case, you participated in some lite high school hazing, where your baseball team made you eat the straight paste that our local wing joint then mixed with butter to make its famed “Chernobyl” sauce. It was not pleasant.
Avec un soupçon de “Random Access Memories” by Daft Punk