Tag Archives: music

All These Love Letters

As I walked down the G train platform headed home from Williamsburg, I noticed the busker had done very well judging by the number of dollars fluttering in his guitar case.

A woman was speaking to him. I overheard her saying she booked talent at such and such place and that she’d tell them about him. As I moved further down the platform, behind me I heard her ask him, “What’s your name again?”

NYC Subway Busker

He launched into another song as I found a spot on the platform. His voice was low and soft, the strumming of his guitar a light, silk-like backdrop for sound waves the color of a good chocolate. I didn’t recognize the song but it was beautiful in his voice. After a break in the song, all of a moment, a woman’s voice joined in for the chorus.

I peeked back from behind a column, and it’s the same woman he’d been speaking to when I walked past. And her voice was strong, clear like a bell and deeply melodic. She didn’t ask for permission. She just sang. Across the platform, I caught a man shaking his head and smiling in wonder as he likely thought, “New York, I love you.”

They wrapped up the song together and I looked back again. We, the people on the platform, shared a round of applause for the impromptu duo. The busker smiled broadly and stomped, blown away by the random stranger’s voice. A beat later and he was kneeling down next to where she sat on the bench, exchanging telephone numbers.

As the train on the opposite platform departed, the busker eased into Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together.” His new lady friend’s voice joined in again at the chorus, and her voice seemed to agree with the song. Then our train pulled into the station and I boarded thinking, “I love you, New York.”

And I rode home thinking about how many people living here this weekend thought, felt, wrote that same thing.

All these love letters.

19 and 0, Love Songs for the Record (Playlist)

The last thing I created as a truly innocent, naive person was a mixtape I made on Valentine’s Day, 1997. I was about a month into my freshman year of college at The University of New Hampshire. (I’d deferred a semester while trying to work out the financial aid situation with NYU, where I had been set to attend. Didn’t work out, went to UNH for their excellent journalism program.)

I turned 18 a couple months before starting college. I had a religious upbringing and hadn’t been allowed to date in high school. I was a virgin, had never drank or anything like that. So, on Valentine’s Day weekend, I made a mix called “19 and 0, Love Songs for the Record” to commemorate 19 Valentine’s Days alive and single. I had a feeling future Valentine’s Days wouldn’t be so simple.

Original "Cover Art," circa 1997.

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Ok GO! (free write no. 1)

This is a free write, which means I’m not caring about the literary value of this entry or whether I use a dash where I should use a semi-colon. I just need to write and remember where I heard this song that’s stuck in my head.

I’ve been running all over creation, living from ticket to ticket and out of pink suitcases, briefcases, sneakers, iPods and mittens. I think I have issues with pink addiction.

I’ve been thinking a lot about soundtracks for a future entry I’m writing. Have you ever noticed that a couple of days will go by, and all these previously meaningful or presently pertinent or just plain great songs keep playing wherever you go? Continue reading

Energy (free write no. 2)

“Hot damn ho, here we go again.
Light as a rock, bitch. Hard as a cock, bitch.
This shit knock for blocks through hardtops
in the parkin’ lots, where my nigga Rock like to spark-a-lot.
My Brook-lyn style speak for itself.
Like a wrestler, another notch under my belt.
The embezzler, chrome treasurer,
the U-N-O competitor, I’m ten steps ahead of ya.”

- Lil’ Kim, “Quiet Storm” remix w/Mobb Deep.
(For more on what this song means to me, read “Music Coursing Through My Veins”.)

There is an energy that connects all of us and everything we come into contact with. If you can get close enough to touch someone, you can change them just by being that near to them. Call it magnetism or attraction – what you want is drawn to you in direct proportion to how much you want it. The fact that I need a name for it prevents me from trying to talk about it, so the lesson or the message eludes me. But other people who have this knowledge and ability know what I’m talking about without needing a label. Continue reading

Music Coursing Through My Veins: What I Love

It’s funny, because I was going to post a blog last night listing some of my favorite workout songs that have motivated me at the gym over the years, but I was so tired when I got home, I decided to save it. In the meantime, browse the answers to this survey. I’ll get to the “iPod Workout Walk Down Memory Lane” another day.

List 10 musical artists you like, in no specific order (do this before reading the questions below). Continue reading