Katie’s Orphans
Thursday, July 4th, 2024: Arts, Music & Dance.
Preparing for Katie’s memorial ceremony in the desert, I found a folder of lyrics she’d left with me when we were partners in Terra Incognita, in San Francisco in the 1980s. Some of them she’d written before we met in 1984, and some after.
She depended on me to set her lyrics to music, but we never worked on these together, so now that she’s gone, they’re her orphans. My mission is to turn them into the songs they deserve.
The COVID pandemic began a four-year hiatus from the arts, a troubling time for most and almost fatal for me. So I’m rusty, and I have to fit creative work into brief intervals between the toil of surviving and caring for loved ones. But I wanted to share these lo-fi recordings of works in progress with our community, because who knows if I’ll ever have time to polish them for mass consumption?
I started composing most of them with the electric bass – Katie’s instrument, but also more and more my instrument of choice. The lyrics would suggest a rhythm, a melody would arise from singing over it, and the result was always surprising. But singing them myself is awkward, because they’re a woman’s songs and they should feature a female voice.
These first four came together quickly and easily – probably because I’d opened myself to her memory and her spirit. I had to revise a few lines here and there so they would work better with the music – that turned out to be the hardest part.
The drawing for “Stampede” and the photo for “I Wish You Were Awake” are by Katie.
Indian Paintbrush
Indian paintbrush is one of the most common wildflowers of the American West. Katie wrote this about our shared experience of falling in love with the desert and yearning for its mysteries. She seemed to be unconsciously channeling the spirits of the people who lived there before us, who also made songs about their journeys through the desert and the mysterious things they encountered along the way. Katie was the only friend who loved the desert as much as I did, so I’m especially sorry that I didn’t help her with this one while she was alive.
Runaway Train
Katie’s family moved several times, but finally ended up in North Dakota where she finished high school and “ran away” from home. Before I met her, I used to catch and ride freight trains all over the country, so I can attest that she captured the experience perfectly in these lyrics. And they also carry a hint of the next song.
Stampede
This is Katie writing about the condition that ultimately killed her, using her lifelong love of horses as a metaphor. I knew this would be a challenge, and I dreaded it, but I had to try.
I Wish You Were Awake
She scrawled this on a piece of scrap paper, early one morning while we were camping somewhere on the northern California coast.
Max, Thanks for sharing, great job on thse and listened to all this morning.
Hugs
David