Well, dear readers, the plan was simple. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, the plan was simple – to simply have a simple ME day. It certainly began that way after a lovely night of eleven hours sleep. I got up and immediately had a call from Richard Sherman who told me he was thrilled that his Sherman Brothers LA Christmas song was in the show – he was equally thrilled that Robert Yacko would be singing his other song. So, that was a nice way to begin the day. Then I decided to have a simple telephonic call with Adryan Russ, the lyricist of The Black Dahlia song we’re struggling with. In yesterday’s notes I laid out why it wasn’t working for me or anyone else who’s heard it. So, we had a really long and fruitful conversation about what the song’s point of view is and how to get away from it being a laundry list of factoids, which is simply not interesting in this kind of number. I was also still struggling with the notion of the tango and so after Adryan agreed to do a new pass, this time writing as if the Dahlia herself was singing and telling her story (already more compelling) post-death. I then had a long conversation with my choreographer and we talked about the possibility of only doing the song via dance, no lyrics at all, but I sent it to her to see what she thought and said we’d just keep playing with it and in the end if it wasn’t going to work I’d just cut it.
Then an hour later Adryan sent me her new version and because it suddenly had a point and wasn’t a list song, it was instantly more compelling. I’d told her that when I thought about doing a song about the Dahlia in my head I heard it as a very noir thing, all moody muted trumpet with a trio, and bringing in a sax at some point. But the composer had gone where his head told him, which was a tango, and truth be told there was no way to set the original lyric in a noirish way. But here I had a dead woman singing her story. It was too long and there were still too many lyrics left from the previous version (all that was at the end – the first two verses through the bridge were very good – I made a lyric change in the first verse so it would scan the same as the other verses and she was fine with that. So, I wondered how it would feel in a noir musical setting so for fun I sat down at the piano and began noodling around my favorite noir chord changes. Suddenly, quite suddenly really, so suddenly that it took me aback, I was writing a tune that sat on the lyrics really well, so I just kept going – fixing scan problems as I could (I actually wrote the tune to the second verse since that one scanned the best for me). I was very excited by how it felt and just for fun I called Doug Haverty, who’s a contributor and who hadn’t liked the previous version at ALL, and I played him the first two verses and he really liked it. So, I knew I was on the right track, so I called Adryan and played it for her and she really liked it – yes, we’d have to tell the composer but he is very busy right now and he would never have been able to get to this soon enough. So, I asked her to shorten the ending and fix the various scan problems before I continued. Then I took a little break, but then got her new version. I finished writing the bridge and still felt the ending was trying to hold on to too much from the previous version – so, I cut the final verse, and consolidated the good lines into a cut down new final verse and it worked like a dream. I sent it to her, she approved, and I wrote the final two lines musically and it was done. And that is how long it takes to sometimes find a song. Now, whether it actually works in the show is another story. Where I have it, the perkier tempo was helpful, but this just feels so right now, so dark and eerie and it’s like nothing else in the show, so hopefully we’ll all think it works. I must tell you, that was my entire day and evening all the way past midnight, which is why these here notes are going up late. Whew!
Today, I’ll do a bunch of stuff in the morning, including getting the new version of the Dahlia to the sheet music guy, because we have to get it done quickly – once Lanny has it that’s the last thing he has to orchestrate and that puts us in very good shape musically. I’ll have to have something to eat, hopefully I’ll pick up packages and hopefully some dealers will actually send the money they owe via Paypal, then I’m meeting the musical director at three so we can do an arrangement of the Christmas song and he’ll prepare that chart for Lanny – I’m keeping it VERY simple. Then we have our first rehearsal, which is all learning music, as will be the second rehearsal. After that, I have a meeting for the ALS show.
The rest of the week is all rehearsals, meetings, meals, and on Friday night I see our very own Sami in The Addams Family at Calabasas High School.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, record the Dahlia and send it off, eat, hopefully pick up packages, do an arrangement, have our first rehearsal, and have a meeting. Today’s topic of discussion: What crime stories have you been obsessed with, especially when you were younger? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy that we have, I hope, finally found the damn song.