I've been wresting for days with Desperate Joy, a new song written for the Bob Dylan night on Wednesday. It was inspired by the life of Edie Sedgwick, and thoughts of Paul America too.
The words were initially:
On the fringe of the ultimate high
You'll find her riding
Tracing the sky
On speed
In the flash of the eyes
of the newspaper's sighs
Wheeling and dealing in deeds
And she doesn't care a thing
for the world, except
for it all, it's the way
When your veins are on fire
With that superstar desire
She'll grasp you
She'll catch you
But not know why
Watch out for her charms
They're a ploy
They're a cry
of desperate joy
She'll love you
She'll kill you
Crumble and cry
Watch out for her words
or you'll die
of hope
of her desperate joy
She will waltz among the flowers
and their acid scent
romancing the bees with a sigh.
Attracting the air
with her glittery hair
everywhere.
She'll grasp you
She'll catch you
But not know why
Watch out for her charms
They're a ploy
They're a cry
of desperate joy
She'll love you
She'll kill you
Crumble and cry
Watch out for her words
or you'll die
of hope
of an overdose
of desperate joy.
I struggled with fitting the music. Firstly (not exactly related to composition!) my voice seems to be constantly tired for some reason. The only bit of the music which I found useful was using the same note for the 'And she doesn't care a thing' verselet. The rest was mostly in A-minor, and it felt a little boring to keep it that way. It needed more of a lift for the chorus, and the pitch needed to be raised a bit. The general feeling reminded me, and still reminds me, of 'Where Do You Go To My Lovely'; which is a nice enough song, but not remotely rock-and-roll, much more of a melancholic French ballad. Perhaps the song and its feelings imposes itself upon this format. Perhaps this songs needs to be a melancholic French ballad.
The first verse then moved into A-minor and E-minor, centered on A and G, moving to ABC and A-minor on the chorus. Today, though, I changed things, centering everything on C instead. I re-wrote the words to fit the music better, as follows:
On the fringe of the ultimate high
You'll find her riding
Tracing the sky
On speed
With a flash of her glittering eyes
Selling feelings
For a packet of sympathy
But she doesn't care a thing for the world
Except for it all
Except for it all
It's the way
When your veins are on fire
She will grasp
She will catch
But not know why
Watch out for her charms, they're a ploy
They're a cry
of desperate joy
She will love
She will kill
She will crumble and cry
Watch out for her tears, or you'll die
of an overdose
of joy
She will waltz with the flowers, their acid aroma
Romancing them all
Romancing them all
Like a queen
like a superstar laser beam
She will grasp
She will catch
But not know why
Watch out for her charms, they're a ploy
They're a cry
of desperate joy
She will love
She will kill
She will crumble and cry
Watch out for her tears, or you'll die
of an overdose
of joy
I decided to make the chorus C-minor, giving it that lift. The tempo remains odd, the run of notes seem to double for the chorus, so the tempo has to slow down to match. The chords follow a descending cycle here: C-min, G-Maj, Bb-Maj, F-Maj, F-min, G-Maj, C-Maj. The chords seem to track the words well; with the F-minor shift happening on 'die' and 'ploy', and the joy at the end rising into C-Major in an almost Catholic way.
I'm still not very pleased with it generally, but I can't say why. The words are poetic enough, and the music tracks them and the mood. However I feel, I'll complete this and keep working, ready for a premiere on Wednesday.
