Words and Music
Which is the chicken and which is the egg?
Last week I wrote about the song “‘Round Midnight,” and I marveled at the occurrence of a note that makes me swoon every time I hear it. The note in question coincides with the word “sing” in the phrase “let the angels sing!” Was it just luck that my favorite note would happen precisely at the moment of angels singing? How do words and music come together anyway?
It is well-known that Thelonius Monk composed the music for “‘Round Midnight” first, and that the lyrics were added later. In fact there were two versions of the lyrics, the first published in 1943 under the title “I Need You So,” and the second recorded in 1947 as the jazz standard, “‘Round Midnight,” that we know today.
Clearly, in the song “‘Round Midnight,” the music came first, and the words came second.
Prior to 2020 I was primarily a composer of vocal music. I wrote lots and lots of songs, a handful of chamber operas and a few pieces for choir. During those years, my modus operandi was, without exception, words first, music second. In fact, in the classical world, that is almost always the case: the words, often a poem or a libretto, exist in their entirety before a note of music has been written. Then the job of the composer is to craft melodies and harmonies to fit the complex emotional landscapes, the gleaming peaks and the deep dark valleys, that are depicted in the words.
And sometimes we even get it right!
This is a piece I wrote about fifteen years ago. The words came from an unusual source. I was invited into a group therapy session for men who were out on parole following a conviction for domestic violence. My purpose was first to get the men to write about themselves and afterwards to use their words as lyrics for a song.
In a single two-hour session, I gave the men prompts which I hoped would yield some powerful words. One of the prompts resulted in the song “If I Could Say.” The prompt was, “Think of someone you haven’t seen for a long time. What you would say to them if you could see them now.” The man whose words were used for this song was thinking about his mother.
Here are the words to “If I Could Say:”
It was her twenty-ninth birthday in three days.
I was outside playing, she was inside, in her room.
She had a heart attack.
The last thing I said before I went out, it was just lucky I guess,
I know I said, I love you, I love you very much.
If I could see her now, I would start up right where I left off.
I would say to her, if I could say
I love, I love you very much.
And then I would say: look, I’m grown.
Look, you have two grandsons now.
And then I would say: look, there is the tree
You planted so long ago, it shades the whole house now.
And here is a recording:
And here is a tree. It is in my own front yard, and it, too, shades the whole house now!
The recording, by Chor Leoni, will be included in a concert film which will stream for ten days beginning June 16. You can check it out here:
Thank you for listening!