Dream A Little Dream Of Me

Linked here below is Simon and I's newest song:

Dream A Little Dream Of Me (featuruing Joey wanting his Mama's ATTENTION you've been singing ENOUGH!)

It's been since before Joey was born that we actually recorded a full song together, but when I hear what we can do all I can think of is the cheesy line: "you and I (could) make beautiful music together". 

Could! The operative word.

Can. Do. 

Could!

The summer after Joey was born we got all signed up to do a whole bunch of songs at a music in the park event. We had quite a great list, and we got about half of them down and then pulled out a few months in advance. Sorry! I guess we bit off more than we could chew. Or we just couldn't get out sh** together? Three kids and a newborn and jobs and all that. I mean, it was possible. But just cause something's possible doesn't mean it will happen. 

I can think of lots of things that are possible!

My dream, that I didn't even realize I had until I met Simon, was to find my own Crazy Fritz. To honky tonk around with. I remember our first moments together, realizing he was a musician--a piano player, even! He could be my Crazy Fritz! 

Well, he is, in many ways! It's just, in some ways he's more about the journey and I'm more about the destination. (Which would Crazy Fritz gravitate towards, anyway?) Both of those things--the journey and the destination--in the extreme are no good. So we have to find the middle ground somehow. 

Isn't that what relationships are for? To take our extremes and muddle them up a bit? Not easy, definitely challenging...but there's no growth without challenge.

So yeah, we have to find a middle ground somehow. And when we do, we get something like this song that we recorded!

It's not "finished". In fact, I'd like to do a video of it. I'd like to get a take when no one else is here (sorry Joey!). I'd like to get a take when I know I'm being recorded and I come in at the right time and make dedicated conscious efforts not to make the mistakes that poke out at me when I listen to myself sing. 

I'd like to just...do the song some more!

We can do this number slow, fast, spooky...geesh knowing Simon he could probably turn it into a trance track or some hip hop situation. We could have 50 variations on Dream A Little Dream Of Me. Mama Cass would applaud from her grave. We could be never finished with it.

There's something lovely about that, too. That journey. It's so much fun. It's so much fun when he has all his gear set up, we put the headphones on, we can hear each other crystal clear, he messes around on those keys and I try to dance along with my voice, or he tries to respond to how I'm moving the song. It's a give and take, like...in a relationship! I'm transported elsewhere, but with him. Elsewhere, but still here, just here in the elsewhere mode. 

Something I miss so badly is singing in a band. I got to sing for three hours once a week, with great live musicians, in a small, crowded music room in a dingy sketchy artists' building (it's been torn down by now). I miss it so much. It's a sacrifice I made in having Joey, which sounds strange to say. But it is. The last show we did together was right before the world closed down, too, in this great dive bar. I romanticize that bar, and that night. It was wonderful! I got to perform songs for 3 hours! Songs I (mostly all) loved singing! I still can't believe it happened. Anyway, last weekend a friend and I finally went back to that bar. They have karaoke there now. I thought it would be maybe painful to go in, but it wasn't. 

What was painful was that the karaoke was in the back! We were sitting there, with everyone else, wondering when it would start. Then I realized I heard loud but muffled music in the back and thought...what? Is the karaoke back there? So I went to check it out. 

It was. The singers sing in the pathway to the washroom lineup. In this small little space with like three tables. All the other civilized people having conversations stay up in the front, by where we played as a band 4 years ago. 

Well, we went back there anyway to sing. But honestly, if you are a karaoke-er you know that part of the experience is to enjoy others' karaoke-ing, to all sing together in a feeling of community that is hard to come by these days, and to have an audience when your name is called! If I wanted to karaoke at home with just a few people...well that's what I'd do. If I wanted to karaoke and just sing when it was my turn well I could just do that at home by myself. I want THE EXPERIENCE!

I sang this song at karaoke, Dream A Little Dream Of Me, just to see what it might be like after having practiced it with Simon so much lately. Let me tell you, too, once you've had a live musician like Simon playing it for you...there's no going back! But I did it anyway. 

Part of my own enjoyment of music, and of singing, is sharing it with people. That is why I wanted so badly to get a recording of Simon and I's to share out. It's not perfect, but it's...us. Making beautiful music together! (Ha! Couldn't help myself.)

No promises, but I do sincerely hope we offer more to come. And maybe even that music in the park performance or few someday. We do have quite a setlist written down. Requests? (Ha!)

Yes. Just be realistic it might be another few years before we do yours.