Tag: Peggy Lee

Musical Back and Forth

Ever heard of Belle Chen? Neither had I until recently.

A pianist. She creates complex engaging sounds at the keyboard. She interweaves nature sounds with her recordings.

I’m listening to whale sounds in the rendition of her current composition at the moment. Earlier she used synthesizers in a piece.

I read that Chen’s piano training took place under a number of teachers in a number of different locations as her family moved around quite a lot. First to New Zealand from Taiwan. Later to Australia.

Those various musical learning teachings shaped her unique piano playing style. I imagine her inherent musical talent and inclinations shaped her musical expression as well.

She is Taiwanese-Australian. She was a first generation immigrant in Australia and the first pianist in her family. She is now based in London.

She is 35 years old.

When we are growing up, we look up to and are influenced by the established talent out there in the world. My musical tastes were initially influenced by the big band sounds of the 40s. Glenn Miller. Artie Shaw. Duke Ellington.

And the superstar solo artists of the time. Frank Sinatra. Peggy Lee. Andy Williams. And the great Ella Fitzgerald. My parents were a little older than the norm. It showed in the music that shaped them and ultimately us, too

I watched both of them suffer culture shock as cultural musical tastes shifted from the big band vibe of the 40s to Elvis Presley in the 50s, then Beatlemania and the onslaught of rock bands in the 60s and 70s.

Even my father became an avid viewer of the Sonny and Cher Show in the 60s. Mainly, I think he liked how Cher looked and dressed.

For a while, it was our time in the music world. Pink Floyd, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Fleetwood Mac were claimed collectively as our own personal minstrels. Or so it felt at the time.

For years, we were masters of and awash in the soundtrack of our generation. It was the music we played on our phonographs. Yes, our record players. It was the music we rocked our heads to when it came on the radio.

Joni Mitchell and Carole King were my personal musical heroines. I spent hours listening to their evocative tunes with others in university lunch rooms. I would listen to them through headphones all alone in my room with silent appreciation and gratitude.

These were my ladies and cheering section. They sang what I was feeling and comforted me.

This morning I met Belle Chen on Apple Music. I was searching the classical music section for a soundtrack to accompany my day. After looking her up online, and seeing her eclectic musical background, I opened up her musical offering. I am now a devoted, if emerging, fan.

Belle Chen is my daughter’s age. I note that I am now looking backwards at emerging musical talent out there.

The mainstream musical stage has shifted beyond recognition to my ears. Its artists are often multi-talented and have to create elaborate music videos to accompany their sound.

Today’s young artists are taking hold in my psyche. I am already a fan of rappers Bad Bunny and Doja Cat. Meghan Thee Stallion has caught my eye with her flashy television ads as much as she has with her music.

Ed Sheeran is a longtime favorite. And even he is likely getting too old to count as “fresh talent”. any longer.

The musical guard has definitely changed. The great musicians of my generation are being installed in musical halls of fame. Or they are already dead. Or dying.

Or they are enjoying a great revival as Joni Mitchell is. She is currently enjoying her first number one hit on the Billboard charts. She has been “rediscovered” after a mature and moving rendition of Both Sides Now at the Grammy Awards recently. She composed that song in her twenties.

I sit and watch the passing musical parade. I take pleasure and comfort from what I hear and what I can choose to listen to. I was never a head-banger back in the day, like many of my peers. If I wish to revisit the music of my or any other generation, I just have to hit up the internet.

Seeing my girl Joni’s star rise again in a new generation is a wistful and delightful development. “Ye shall know them by their works.” It was a Bible verse meant to apply to distinguish good people from bad.

Joni is certainly known by her works. Her lyrics sit in my head like prayers. She used her talent prodigiously on this Earth. I, for one, am mighty glad she did.

Now I don’t only have to look back to revisit her genius. I just have to turn on the radio.

Today’s young people, years from now, will be able to do as I do now with my 70s favorites. They can call up any of their favorite music and musicians at any time they want. Spice Girls, anyone?

New Year, Old Me

Hope is a wondrous thing. I’d even go so far as to say it is lifesaving.

In the face of all challenges and heartbreak, hope can rise. Bidden sometimes. At other times, it just seems to pop up. The proverbial beacon of light and direction sitting off in the distance that appears to us, seemingly out of nowhere.

I sometimes wonder how often that very scenario played out for mariners of old. In the middle of being mercilessly tossed about on savage seas with death but a rogue wave away, off in the distance, the lookout spots a lighthouse.

Hope rises. Life continues. The sailors get to live another day.

As we mark this first day of a new year in our calendar, we are similarly touched by hope for the year to come. Hope for renewal. Hope for freedom from pain – emotional and/or physical. Hope for better news. Hope for sanity and peace of mind.

It is, of course, a false construct. Today is no different than yesterday in reality. We are not Cinderella who transforms into a princess and steps into a radically altered lifestyle. Of course, at her midnight, she reverted to her previous state. But altered.

The prince she had met and dazzled set out to find her again. That particular “New Year’s Eve” did not make the changes in her life that night. They foretold them.

Change happens like that for most of us, too. Whatever deficiencies we want to address in our life often have to be faced full-on in an instant. Then the slow process of change gets underway. The outcome we want may take weeks, months or years to accomplish. Then, one day, if we’re lucky and have worked hard enough, we are there.

I had this experience with both drinking and smoking. There was a time when I could not imagine my lifestyle would ever be other than what it was. I took some sense of satisfaction in cultivating the image of a hard-working, hard-living journalist for whom alcohol and nicotine were mandatory kit in the trade. An Ernest Hemingway-compatible type of broad.

Confirmation of a pregnancy stopped smoking in its tracks. I inherited my father’s Dutch will of iron. Ditching drink took a little longer. But with almost 24 years of sobriety behind me now, I can hardly remember how or why alcohol was ever part of my life at all.

Yet through it all, I am still me. For better or worse.

I have certainly changed from my younger self. But the essence of who I am is still there. I believe it is that way for most of us. Change does not always present with glaring neon signs in our day-to-day lives. I still have laundry to fold, beds to make, meals to make and dear friends to connect with. Life goes on.

This eventuality can be a hard learning during the egocentricity of youth phase. For some that phase lasts a lifetime. When I learned the phrase “hissy fit,” I recall how mortified and impressed I was by its’ resonance. “Boo.” “Hiss.” “I don’t wanna.” Ya. That sounded pretty similar to me having a temper tantrum.

I am beginning to find some solace in the immutable fact of my own humanity. That is allowing me to ease up on myself. The big ambitions I had for my life as a youth have been abandoned or pretty much dissipated.

And oddly, I find myself these days in the exact situation I always secretly craved. A happy home life. A wonderful and satisfying marriage to a man I think is the coolest dude on Planet Earth. I had similar feelings about my beloved Yorkie, Bailey. Not that I am drawing comparisons between the two, I only mean to say that when I love someone or something, I am all in.

So I did not create a long and unwieldy and unrealistic list of New Year’s resolutions meant to kick in today. There are a few things and unhelpful habits I want to discard. There are a few things I want to do more of. Others I want to do less of.

Like watching TV news as I said recently. That activity is like voluntarily setting yourself up to develop brain fungus. Ptooey. Don’t need it. Don’t want it.

I find myself drifting back to the homely arts and wishing to strengthen my connection to nature. I want to do more of nothing and less constant of the constant unending to-do lists and busywork. It is high time.

You see life goes on with or without us. That is a hard and fundamental learning we all must get eventually. In the face of that truism, we discover the parameters of own life and what we can realistically achieve for our own happiness and that of others around us.

Peggy Lee, the legendary lounge singer from the last century, sang a song called: “Is That All There Is?”

Is that all there is?
Is that all there is?
If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is

I know what you must be saying to yourselves
“If that’s the way she feels about it, why doesn’t she just end it all?”
Oh, no. Not me
I’m not ready for that final disappointment
Cause I know just as well as I’m standing here talking to you
When that final moment comes and I’m breathing my last breath,
I’ll be saying to myself … is that all there is?

https://genius.com/Peggy-lee-is-that-all-there-is-lyrics

I’m going to follow Peggy Lee’s advice. One day, you may discover all of your hopes and dreams and expectations may sit shattered on the sidewalk outside your house.

You may be left to wonder why you lived this life at all and what it was all about. That realization has finally hit me. I’m a grain of sand on a beach. A single star in the heavens.

No matter. I have friends and some family members who love me. I love them back. I plan to keep writing and, as Peggy advises, “hope to keep dancing and having a ball.”

Minus the booze, of course.