I’m currently cringing because I’m watching the Olympic women’s downhill skiing.  Eeeeesh.  It’s funny – I watch it, hoping to enjoy it … and I do … mostly … but ai yai yai, sometimes I just cringe and feel so sad for those who are bombing out.

And snow injuries always make me shudder more than other injuries.  I bombed out on the snow in a major way when I was 13 years old.  I was sledding with my sister, Stephanie, on one of those saucer-shaped sleds.  We were going very fast downhill, spinning out of control … and my memory is now blocked out – I don’t remember the trees.

My sister was OK, just landing in some shrubs.  I, however, was the lucky chosen one to hit my head on a very thick tree trunk and fly about 30 feet (friends present said it was one of the sickest sounds they’d ever heard).  X-rays later showed that my skull cracked like an eggshell.  I was bleeding out of one ear – a basal skull fracture.  I am very, very fortunate that I am alive and all right in the brain.

My mom says that music healed me.  I had a hard time focusing after the accident, had impact nightmares/anxiety, and was generally scatter-brained, but I practiced the piano and organ over the following weeks and months, and she noticed that doing so “set” my brain back where it ought to be.  The power of music.  It’s real.

As for what I’m currently working on in music, yes, I’m in the middle of arranging my next batch of Halloween Carols™ (getting so many new ideas for more), but I’m also simply practicing the organ – must keep Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in D minor” in my chops!  And I’m having a sensational blast learning Saint-Saëns’ “Danse Macabre” transcribed for organ by Lemare:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhsGpNE4abY

I remember listening to this as a child and finding it so hypnotizing and mesmerizing.  It made me do little waltzes until I was dizzy.  And as an adult, it still makes my head swirl.

And you know what else is making my head swirl?  Alice in Wonderland is almost out!  It comes out the week of my birthday, so of course I’m having a tea party and will be watching it.  No Un-Birthday for me!

I’m looking forward to hearing Danny Elfman’s score.  And where Danny is, we can almost always count on his right-hand man, Steve Bartek, to be working on the score with him.  Steve does a lot of the orchestrating for Danny’s scores … so I love them both.  Magical musical men!  Steve was the guitarist for Oingo Boingo, and I’ve always loved his on-stage personality – you can see how obviously skilled he is, but he just focuses on doing his thing, totally confident and content while letting Danny present the drama.  Makes for a successful performance.  Such a pair!  And kudos to each one individually.

Happy Wonderlanding, my dear Trick-or-Treaters.  I hope your skulls, too, will dance about while lovely madness dances within.

(And stay tuned for my next blog, where I will discuss “Birthday Trifle” – a maddeningly succulent, gloriously caloric, opulently layered, lavishly chocolate-y, desperately pistachio-y, savagely whipped-creamy affair.)

I almost turned into a one-eyed Corpse Bride a few days ago.  Well, at least it felt like that.  But I have since learned that hydrogen peroxide will not melt one’s eyes out.

I woke up and was getting ready to go out for a run.  I wasn’t completely awake, and while putting my contact lenses in, instead of reaching for the saline solution, I reached for the hydrogen peroxide cleaning solution.  Once my left contact reached my eye, I knew immediately what I had done.  And I heard a terrible sizzling sound.

AAAAAAAAAACK!  As I violently stuck my face in the sink and slapped water into my ocular area, I had visions of my eye bubbling up and dissolving.  A mini zombie flick, right there in my bathroom.

But my eye didn’t bubble up and dissolve.  However, it has been very angry at me for the past few days.  I’ve had this little monster eye.  Bright red.  And because my eyes are green, with the principles of complementary colors (red vs. green), the colors have looked very exaggerated.  Grrr, monster.

Fun.  I’m just glad that I can see.

Well, in the world of music, I went to NAMM about a little bit ago (Jan 14 – 16).  Ah, what a glorious gathering.  Once a year, the Anaheim convention center (which is city blocks long and three stories high) fills to the brim with every sort of music company you can think of.  It feels so good to walk around and take it all in, just being around music-minded people.

I had the pleasure of meeting the president and the district manager for Allen Organs – Steven Markowitz and Joel Hurley.  I’ve played on many Allens and like them quite a bit.  I also met Franco Luzi of Viscount Organs.  I was really impressed with the touch of its keyboard – very tracker-organ-like.  It’s a lovely instrument – perhaps to record on someday …

In chatting with Franco, I gave him my CDs and asked him if he had seen any Halloween happenings back in Italy.  He said that Halloween has just barely started up over there, that his 18-year-old daughter went to a Halloween party just this past October.  I asked him about trick-or-treating and he said it started up maybe 2 or 3 years ago.  And here I’m getting all excited and fascinated about this – like little giggly creatures silently bubbling up inside my head.

How did the children know about trick-or-treating?  Through American movies, said Franco.  And did the neighborhood people at each doorstep know what to do?  He said many of them did not and the children had to teach them what to do.  So, the next year they were prepared.  Ha!  Isn’t that great?

He said that of course Italians celebrated November 1 and 2 (All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days), but that just recently the Italian government declared it no longer a government holiday.  Franco said the people still celebrate those days, but they don’t have work off like they used to.  Boo. 

I wish that Oct. 31, Nov. 1, Nov. 2 were official government holidays here in the U.S.  October 31^st is a crazy/fun night, and November 1 & 2 are days to reflect on life and think about our ancestors and our posterity.  I truly believe that how we think about death fashions our character in life.  There’s a time to make fun of death and laugh at it (Oct. 31), and then there’s a time to be solemn, pensive, and have peace about it (Nov. 1 & 2).

So, after I talked with these organ companies at NAMM, I headed over to Fender.  Sigh.  I have a beautiful Martin guitar that a friend hooked me up with, but it turns my fingertips to pulp (because I’m still learning and am slow with getting the chord positions solid).  I want to save up and buy a really nice electric guitar.  My good friend, Ian Fowles (many of you might know him through The Aquabats! and Further Seems Forever – a most excellent player) let me try out the action on his Gibson and I loved it!  It doesn’t hurt my fingers!  So … I will acquire one such beauty someday soon and have a ball.

I was able to attend NAMM because my good friend, Kevin, works at Ludwig Drums and gave me a pass.  So, he introduced me to some nice, Ludwig-endorsed drummers.  I chatted with Mario Calire of Ozomatli – very nice guy.  I gave him my CD and he asked if his kids would like it.  Absolutely.  It’s for all ages.  I also had the pleasure of meeting Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz, the drummer for Weird Al Yankovic.  Again, very nice guy.  Such nice drummer boys!  We chatted for a while about virtual drums and recording programs.  I’ve been especially interested in this since working with Micah Anderson and the program Reason for my Samhain song.

I also met Jeff Friedl of ASHES dIVIDE and Puscifer.  We discovered a mutual soft spot for cats and Halloween.  He showed me his iPhone screensaver – a picture of his two beautiful Burmese kitties.  Ah, now there’s a musician – rocks hard on the outside with pure kitty-loving tenderness on the inside.  Good music is guaranteed.  I liked him – I felt a nice friendshippy connection.  Maybe we’ll work on a cat song someday (hang on! ding, ding, ding! I already have another cat song written that needs jazz drums … hmmmmmm ….).  I love meeting fellow cat people.  I met a fellow runner/fast walker yesterday who was being followed by a beautiful orange-and-white stripped cat.  We stopped and petted it and chatted.  Instant understanding between cat people.

Outside of the Ludwig group, there was one drummer I wanted to meet.  I was told he was somewhere around NAMM.  And I chased him down.  Hunted, more like it.  Vatos.  Johnny “Vatos” Hernandez.  The drummer for my favorite band, Oingo Boingo (now disbanded).  I told him I’d been a fan since I was 10 years old.  We bantered for a while.  I told him I’m a pipe organist who writes Halloween music and gave him my CDs.  He told me that he does Halloween concerts at Magic Mountain and other places and might give me a call for this year’s concert.  Now, wouldn’t that be neat?  Why, yes.  Yes, it would.  So, we shall see.

Why did I meet so many drummers and not keyboardists?  I don’t know.  It just happened that way.  When I’ve played live with bands, I must say that the most thrilling part for me was to be playing with drums.  Totally electrifying.  Really.  Electrifying down to my toes and fingertips.  Those beats get into my blood and move me like I can’t explain.  Purr!  See, I’m used to playing for funerals, church services, and weddings – not a lot of drum action.  Although, I did play a gig for a modern worship service with drums and guitar.  That was interesting. 

And I played a Spanish wedding mass with a mariachi band – that was cool.  We weren’t slotted to play together, but they were up in the loft with me and I invited them to play Wagner’s wedding march with me.  Why not?  I usually play it in B-flat, and they said in their awesome accents, “Can you play it in the key of C?”  Brilliant.

Well, my dear Trick-or-Treaters, it’s been fun.  I hope I’ve filled your satchels up with a lot of good candy.  Enjoy your munchings.  And please, don’t put hydrogen peroxide in your eyes.

I thought only cats like me hacked hairballs, but meowow!  She became sick two days after Thanksgiving for about two weeks, seemed to be getting better for a week, then got sick again.  I’ve been doing my cat-ly duties by lying on her stomach to keep her warm.  I also give her nose kissies early in the morning to make sure she’s not dead.

Kristen has been going through her Halloween Carols and thinking about which ones to arrange for her next CD.  I hear her humming and playing a particular one over and over.  She once told me that it was about the Roman history involved in Halloween.  I get to hear a lot about her carols while she’s writing them because I often sit next to her at the piano bench or couch when she’s writing and she’ll tell me little insights.

Kristen and I spent Christmas with our whole family and it was lovely.  Her dad (my Grandpaw) cooks prime rib every Christmas Eve and Kristen gives me all the fatty meat from her cut.  I love the fatty meat.  She loves me so much.

While I’m writing this, I want to thank you from the bottom of my tail to the tips of my whiskers for your kind comments about my performance in “Cats in the Catacombs.”  I don’t like it when Kristen holds me because I’m a control freak (she held me while I recorded the vocals), but … I guess I should thank Kristen for making me a rock star.

Kristen tells me that it’s New Year’s Eve tonight.  Well, whatever that means to you humans, I hope it’s fun for you, but it couldn’t possibly top all the fun I have napping all day.

Oh, I won’t gloss it over by calling it a break-up.  It was a dump – let’s be honest.  I was dumped.  Dumpee.  Frumpy Dumpy.  Dumpty Dumpty sat on the wall.  Dumpty Dumpty had a grrrrreeeeeaaaaaat fall.  But COME ON!  Where were all the king’s horses and the king’s men?  Nowhere to be found, I’ll tell you.  King’s men would have been nice.

I tried so hard to be optimistic and forced myself to continue exercising daily by running, biking, or even just walking, but I could hardly write any music.  In fact, I don’t think I wrote any music for quite a while.  And then, many of us go through this, where we tell ourselves, “OK.  Come on.  Come on.  It’s time to get living again.  Just try.  Little bits.  Little bits.” 

So I tried little composition exercises in counterpoint for fun, starting each one as a study, not knowing if it would work, but just trying for the sake of trying.  I did all of these lying down on the couch because I wasn’t completely happy enough to sit up straight at the keyboard (except to check on chord progressions now and then).

I wrote a good number of my carols in addition to “Vampire Empire” during this period – A Broom With A View, Arachnitect, Mostly Ghostly, and Flappy Bat are the ones I’ve released so far.  It really is amazing how we grow stronger after sad experiences.  For me, it was deciding to be content and happy without the man I thought I might marry … and seeing my composition skills reemerge and become more refined and creative.

When I was deciding which carols to put on the CD for this year, I knew I had to put a vampire song in there.  Of course!  The world is afire with vampires.  I wrote this carol before I had heard of Stephenie Meyer and her Twilight novels, but I’m glad I had something in stock to offer during this craze.

I arranged and “fluffed up” Vampire this past summer in preparation for recording.  This carol is different from the others in that I worked some of it out in pencil, and some of it while I recorded.  I just told myself to keep building and patching it together.

I came to a predicament when writing the harpsichord lines.  The purist and the experimentalist inside me clashed.  During a few parts, I wanted the harpsichord bass lines to dip down to a D.  A real harpsichord only goes to an F.  But with a synthesizer, I could do anything.  The purist inside me screamed, “NOOOOOO!!!!  Don’t do it!!!!  That’s not what a harpsy does!”  But the experimentalist inside me cooed, “Oooooh yeah!  Mmmmm, that sounds so cool.  Sooooo cool.  Ooooh, honey.”

So, what did I do?  Time to pull out the old mantra … WWBD? 

What Would Bach Do?

And I went for it, dipping that harpsy line down to a D.  Oh yes.  My mantra came through.  If Bach had all the musical technology available today, he absolutely would use it to its far-reaching ranges.  There are stories of his playing bizarre combinations of organ stops, exploring very non-traditional colors of the pipe organ.  What a musician.  The ultimate musician.

Something to listen for is my re-harmonizing of the melody in each verse (different chords each time).  I’ve always admired how Bach could take a single melody and harmonize it in multiple ways, and so … WWBD … I wanted to do that, too.

I wore red lipstick while I recorded the vocals, trying to achieve a vicious beauty in the sound.  I had studied the characters of the vampire wives in “Van Helsing” and was trying to channel a similar personality.  My laughter at the end of the song came while pushing the limits of this vampire character in take after take after take.  I had tried some dramatic “muah ha ha” laughs during a take, but they sounded so ridiculous that I started laughing at what I just did – and those are the laughs in the CD recording.

Succulent biting and sucking to our desire

Forever mark the Vampire Empire.

Come have a taste of our vicious kisses

Then drink, awake to the pulsing blood where bliss is.

Undead, un-reflected, seeking a neck to bite,

We shun the sun and hark the dark night.

Don’t cross us, or pointed words from our lips

Will stab your gloat – and throat – ending in dripping sips.

Garlic or our lick? Will sticky blood be your pick?

Drains by Romanian fangs are quick.

Sharpen your smile and, while midnight dancing with us,

Chase lushly the blush of Eternal Spring.

My song “Dark Glass” is the only track on my “A Broom With A View” album that is not directly from my Halloween Carols™ collection.

I wrote this song before I had conceived the idea of Halloween Carols in 2004.  When did I write it … 2001 or 2002 … I can’t remember right now.  Starting in the late 1990’s, I wanted to write beautiful Halloween music – most of it about Halloween history – and I was exploring a lot of areas and ideas.

“Dark Glass” is about a dream I had – a mesmerizing dream with surreal Halloween imagery.  In my dream, I was in a shower that had an open window to the night sky – no glass.  I saw the earth right outside this window.  It was huge, spherical, glowing with greens and blues, and rotating while making a sort of sparkling humming sound.

I thought to myself – if that’s the earth, then what planet am I on?  I somehow floated outside and up into the atmosphere, observing how the globe, the waters, the sky – how everything was a shade of blue.  So beautiful.  So vibrant!

I then floated further out where the atmosphere had become a pinkish black color.  I have a lot of these dreams, where I’m floating or flying, and I start to go up and up to where I start to panic a little bit that maybe I’m going too far up.  Then the atmosphere shattered and fell in big drops of dark glass, shattering and splashing on the ground.

Also in this dream were touches of a Halloween/fall season I experienced back in college – some of the nighttime fog and feelings when I walked with some friends from their apartment to the grocery store to buy some pumpkin ice cream, then walked back to watch “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”  Also, some of the scenery and feelings from a Halloween party further out west from where I lived at the time (Provo, Utah) where it’s more rural – black sky, open fields with wheat-ish colors, clear night, cold, a fence by the house – really beautiful autumnal feelings.

When I woke up from this dream, my mind was on fire from all the vibrant, beautiful imagery and surreal experience.  It was such a powerful dream, that I had to write it down.  That day I had a gig to play organ for a wedding ceremony an hour away, so as I drove, I put a notebook in my lap and wrote down a description of the dream (writing in big, messy letters as my eyes were on the road).  The lyrics of “Dark Glass” are almost exactly as I wrote them down then, while driving.

I set these words to music later, trying to capture the feelings in my dream.  I think one of my favorite musical lines is the contrabass during the chorus.  I scored it to go into a high range, which works because the organ pedals fill in the bass in those moments.

I hope this song “takes you places.”

I saw the earth as a moon-like globe

Outside my window, shower window.

No glass impaired my sight this night

As a vision pulled my ear, “Come out here.”

All the atmosphere had shattered

And fell in fragments

Like dark glass from the sky.

No one can say, none can detail,

Where droplets splashed

And shards rushed maddened.

Chorus:

Everything was a shade of blue,

Round and grand and blue,

So close,

I had to check what planet I was on.

How radiant the sphere appeared. 

Glowing water waved a mirror.

Long points of white

Turned the earth with sparkling hums.

The continents seemed a little fuzzy

As they throbbed in their green pattern.

I stretched my arms to their expanse,

So round, so bold,

So feeling and yet small.

Through this night I could fly

Past all wintery fences high,

Alone for miles around.

Am I too far above ground?

The motion pulled, so where’s too far?

Chorus

My elbows leaned on the tile.

I forgot there was tile for a while,

And soaked in absence of time.

The steam gathered dew in mind.

So light and dark spin their fight –

Or agree to what they are –

All at night outside my window.

Happy All Hallows Day, my dear Trick-or-Treaters!  I hope you all had enchanting, fun Halloweens last night.

The Orange County Register published an article on my Halloween Carols™ yesterday that made front page!  I thought you might enjoy reading it:

http://www2.ocregister.com/articles/halloween-lawrence-says-2631119-carols-song

Of all my Halloween Carols, “Mostly Ghostly” is the only one for which I wrote the words first.

Isn’t that funny?  I was always taught by music teachers and professors that text comes first, then the music, so that the music can express the text.  Well, “Mostly Ghostly” is the only one that follows that advice.

I wrote “Mostly Ghostly” in bed a couple of years ago – words and music (but there were a few weeks between the two).  A lot of these carols I write in bed or on the couch.  I don’t have perfect pitch, but because their melodies are exercises in counterpoint (a type of musical composition), I like to write away from the piano, to exercise the “music composition muscles” in my brain.

When it came time to arrange it for the CD (this one I arranged back in March-ish of this year), I did that at my piano/synthesizer.  I wanted to experiment with richer harmonies than I used for the plain carol – diminished chords and other lush combinations of notes.  I pulled from centuries of musical influences and had fun with what a slight tug of a half-step might do.

This carol is about a ghost who misses being alive.  I used to think that all my songs were girls, but this one strikes me as being male.  I don’t know why.  Every time I start to refer to this song as “she,” it doesn’t feel right.  Funny, huh?  So, this man-ghost misses his life … and his smarts. 

He was very witty and intelligent in mortality (so he thinks), but not so intelligent as he thinks that his smarts were left in his physical brains … so maybe he isn’t so smart after all, because he doesn’t esteem his spiritual brains.  Nonetheless, he’s a maudlin guy, but mercurial, too – weepingly sentimental one moment, seethingly angry the next.

Ghosts have been associated with Halloween from the very beginning, from the original ancient Celtic days of Samhain.  The eve of Samhain was believed to be the night when the dead came back to visit the earth.  These early people welcomed deceased family members, but were wary of other visitors who might not be so friendly … or just jealous that they’re not alive anymore and have turned insecure and boastful and bipolar like “Mostly Ghostly.”

I’m mostly a ghost, but I still have my head.

I don’t mean to boast, but I’m better than dead.

For, those folks in graves are still lying intact,

And each ghost behaves as though all-dead, in fact.

I keep my mind here, in my hands, at my side.

But, yes, through my ear all my brains seem to slide.

Oh, I love my head; I was clever in life.

But, witlessness dread, so beware of my scythe.

Before I purr on and on about the Souling Song, I’d like to wish my soul friend, Lady Bats, a happy birthday today.  Happy All Births Day.  In her words, she and I are “carved from the same pumpkin.”

Don’t we count ourselves very lucky and blessed to have good friends?  She is a friend who is supernally kind – the most important quality in people I choose to be around.  And it’s an added bonus that she’s a Halloween connoisseur like me.  We both enjoy very elegant Halloweens.  She’s the Pumpkin Queen of Utah and England (she’s from Utah, her husband is from England), and she’s also my “Vampire in Waiting.”  (Maybe I’ll marry some lad from Norway, so I can be the Californian Viking Pumpkin Queen.)

We’re going to grow up to be old cat ladies together.  She likes to rub her face in Molly just like I do.  (For those of you who don’t know, Molly is my cat.  My Halloween cat.)

I would wish good, kind friends like her upon everyone.  Soul Friends. 

OK, now on to the Souling Songs on my Halloween CD.  These songs aren’t about soul friends, directly, but they are about those departed souls whom we memorialize and welcome during the Halloween/Day of the Dead/Samhain season (and many of us do have dearly departed soul friends and family).

I’ll start with my research on “The Souling Song” (also known as “Soul Cake” and “Soalin’ Song” and “A’ Soalin’”) which is an All Souls Day (Nov. 2) tradition, and then go back in time to the Celtic Samhain traditions about which I wrote a new version of the song.

It’s funny how many “flukes” have happened during my Halloween Carols™ project.  One fluke led to my discovering the “Souling Song.”  On my first release, Arachnitect (2008), I arranged the traditional tune, “Ghost of John,” into two versions, adding four more original verses.  In thinking about which songs to put on my second release, I thought another traditional song would be fun.  I didn’t know of any more traditional Halloween songs, but I thought about changing the words to a traditional tune.

Many of us grew up with the tune, “Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose, Will I Ever See Thee Wed?”  As I mention in this year’s CD liner notes, other people know the tune as “Hey Ho, Nobody Home.”  Well, this tune is so pretty and so likable, I thought it might be fun to change the words to something like, “Rose, Rose, Rose, Rose, Will I Ever See Thee Dead?” as a sort of meditation on romance and mortality and how death can just get in the way of things.

I started to research this old tune online, and what did my wondering eyes fall upon?  Why, something too coincidental to call a coincidence.  This tune had also taken on some traditional All Souls Day lyrics!

I nearly coughed and sputtered, it was such an astounding and surprising discovery.

Well, the creative fires really got burning then.  In Lesley’s and Jack’s books, and online, there are different versions and snippets of the traditional words (Lesley Bannatyne and Jack Santino – my two favorite Halloween researchers – I highly recommend their books.)  Online, I found another tune associated with the words – the “Cheshire” tune.

Here are links to the two tunes I worked from:

http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiSOULCAKE;ttSOULCAKE.html

http://www.folkinfo.org/songs/displaysong.php?songid=216

There are more words associated with this song that I found in books, but couldn’t find the melody to go with them, like:

Little Jack, Jack sat on his gate,

Crying for butter to butter his cake.

Up with your kettles and down with your pans!

Give us our souling and we’ll be gone!

So I wrote new melodies to glue the whole song together. You’ll also see that I altered the old melodies quite a bit.  I put the “All Hallows Version” in 2/4 and the “Samhain Version” in 6/8.

I didn’t use all the words I found in my research, because then the song would be too long, and I don’t want to put my Trick-or-Treaters to sleep.  And I tried to keep the All Souls Day meaning, because this song is also associated with Christmas as a caroling song.  Those hearty carolers from centuries ago, wassailing around town, hoping for beer and whatever else the homes had to offer – it makes me laugh as I picture the old traditions and antics of overly merry people.

And, yes, do you see the connection?  Christmas caroling and trick-or-treating.  As Jack Santino points out in his book, The Hallowed Eve, the lines between Halloween and Christmas in Irish tradition are blurred.  This blurring happens in varying degrees throughout the British Isles.  Depending on the area of these isles, the caroling or pre-trick-or-treating tradition was called guising or mumming.  This involved EARNING the treats with a song or skit, not just begging like we do in modern, American trick-or-treating.  (Also, think about the ancient Celts leaving out food for the visiting dead, and our tradition of leaving out food for Santa Claus.)

In getting my bearings on this traditional song, I discovered some other artists’ versions.  Here’s Peter, Paul, and Mary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnbD3QLU5o4&feature=related

The Watersons:

http://www.amazon.com/Souling-Song/dp/B000TPNROW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1256610131&sr=8-1-catcorr

Sting does a version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2qDq2U6eMQ

And here are some other versions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoaa8EuUSkQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1UNkinuKTM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL0d4RqZYuM&feature=related

Interesting how some versions have Halloween associations and others have Christmas associations.  That’s history to my ears.

The two versions I arranged I call the “All Hallows Version” and the “Samhain Version.”  To explain, I’ll quote from my CD’s liner notes:

“’Souling’ grew as a begging tradition – offering to pray for someone’s beloved departed in purgatory in exchange for a ‘soul cake’ …

“The idea to do two arrangements struck me when I realized that this song could clearly outline two of the cultural forces behind Halloween – paganism and Christianity.  As I studied and played around with the Cheshire tune, I had an epiphany: the beginning notes are the same as the medieval plainchant Dies Irae – ‘Day or Wrath’ or ‘Day of Judgment.’  It struck me as plausible that this tune could be a corruption of the chant, a folk simplification of the meaning behind the ‘souling’ tradition – praying for the dead in purgatory, for Judgment Day is coming.

“The traditional words that I use in the ‘All Hallows Version’ present the early Christian viewpoint of the living who pray for the dead.  And then I thought, ‘Well, what do the dead think?’  Medieval Christians thought they were in purgatory.  The Celtic pagans a few centuries before thought they could come and visit on the eve of Samhain.  Because both traditions involve food, I thought soul cakes the perfect crux to musically explain two different viewpoints that swirl together to create modern Halloween.  And so I wrote new words for the ‘Samhain Version’ to explain this.”

Another little insight that I don’t mention in my liner notes is that the Cheshire tune could be called a “Totentanz” – a Dance of Death.  It might be a bit of a stretch, but I argue this because the topic concerns the dead and the rhythm is 6/8, which is a dancing rhythm, a jig.  The Dance of Death (also known as “Danse Macabre”) is a well-known medieval metaphor for the universality of death, that it comes for us all, regardless of station, age, or character.

Recording the “All Hallows Version” was a solo job like most of the songs on my CD.  Listen for the Dies Irae chant in the bells toward the end.  These bell sounds come from a combination of several tracks.

Recording the “Samhain Version” was a party because I hired Jamie Glaser and Micah Anderson.  Jamie recorded the guitars and bass.  He is so, so, so skilled.  He double-tracked the rhythm guitar like it was nothing.  The recording session was so much fun and had such energy about it.  I was dancing about like a barefoot pagan as I was conducting him from the score (he’s a mighty fast reader; he was known as the fastest reader for sessions when he lived in L.A.).

Micah Anderson programmed the drums for me.  And he introduced me to my new favorite music term – the flam (when the drums are smacked just barely off-beat from each other).  He’s a very skilled musician.  We worked so well together, I felt like we’d been friends for many years.  I told him the overall ideas and drum timbres I wanted in the beats and we smacked out the rhythms on the floor and the desk until it worked.  He did a fantastic job of really capturing the character of the song; he totally understood it, that it was meant to be an epic song.  He joked that it needed to be played live in an arena to a bunch of head-banging pirates.

If you would like to know more about these two fabulous musicians, here they are:

http://www.jamieglaser.com/

http://micahdahl.com/

So there’s an epic blog to go with an epic song.  Here are the words for both versions:

ALL HALLOWS VERSION (traditional words)

Soul Day, Soul Day, we be come a‘ souling,

Pray, good people, remember the poor,

And give us a soul cake.

Chorus:

Soul, soul, a soul cake!

Please, good lady, a soul cake!

An apple, a pear, a plum or a cherry,

Any good thing to make us merry.

Soul, soul, a soul cake!

Pray we for a soul cake!

One for Peter, two for Paul,

And three for Him who made us all.

God bless the master of this house, the mistress also,

And all the little children who ‘round your table grow.

Likewise, your men and maidens, your cattle and your store,

And all that dwell within your gates, we wish you ten times more.

Souling Day, so we pray for the souls departed.

Pray give us a cake,

For we are all poor people well-known to you before.

Little Jack, Jack sat on his gate

Crying for butter, to butter his cake.

Up with your kettles and down with your pans,

And give us our souling, and we’ll be gone.

Down into the cellar, and see what you can find.

If your barrels are not empty, we hope you will prove kind.

We hope you will prove kind with your apples and your grain,

And we’ll come no more a’ souling ‘til this month comes again.

Soul Day, Soul Day, we have been praying

For the souls departed, so pray good people, give us a cake.

So give us a cake for charity’s sake

And a blessing we’ll leave at your door.

SAMHAIN VERSION (my original words)

Chorus:

Soul, soul, soul cakes!

We come hunting for soul cakes!

We are dead, but like we said,

On this night we’ll take your bread

And while you’re out of your abode,

Lighting fires of Samhain old,

Think of us, out of body –

As we are, you, too, shall be.

Samhain Night, at long last,

We parade from ages past –

A journey from the Otherworld –

Oh, the hairs that we have curled!

Winter’s Eve surrounds us,

Its open portal astounds us.

We creep into the living sphere

And see where memories summon here.

Find us in this coldness,

Visiting with much boldness.

Share your food; we’ll share our power

To discern a future hour.

Summer’s End, Summer’s End –

Will the sun return, vital warmth to send?

Summer’s End, Summer’s End –

Darkness lengthens in its stride across the sleeping land.

Little Jack, Jack sat on his gate,

Offering goblins and demons his cake.

Up with the chill and down with the sun,

Waning and waning, the Dark Half’s begun.

All this night as boundaries untie,

Visitors friendly and frightful stop by.

Up with your mask and down with your feet,

Marching and marching to lead out the fleet.

How about this dwelling?

Its offerings are compelling,

With drinks and cakes and porridge,

And cherries and berries from storage.

Rattles at your door!

Don’t be scared, but give us some more!

A banshee or a fershee might delight by new firelight.

It’s time to blog about the title track from my Halloween CD this year – “A Broom With A View.”

It’s about a witch taking a joy ride on a broom.  This is one song I could call “Halloween History ‘Lite’” because I don’t go too far into the history of witches and Halloween.  I just wanted to create a mood and emotion of a lovely, elegant witch taking an otherworldly ride through the sky.

In writing this one, I wanted to have fun with the chromatic scale (that basically means all the black and white notes).  I scored the strings to twist and turn to sound like she’s really guiding that broom for a delicious spin.  I took an idea that Beethoven uses prominently in his music – some even call it one of his trademarks – the hemiola.  To explain it simply, this is when, in triple meter, the accent changes from every three beats to every two beats (without changing the meter).

I wrote it a couple of years ago, and had always played it at a slower waltz tempo.  But when I started to think of how I would arrange it for my CD, I realized that it was just too slow.  Yawn.  I took out my metronome and started experimenting with higher tempos, and all of a sudden, life came into this carol!  It’s more of a Viennese Waltz tempo now and I think it suits her better.

For the lyrics, I summoned visions into my mind’s eye and set to describe them.  I wanted to capture the sensory elements of Halloween, because I think this season is such a glorious feast for the senses.  For me, the sky in all its varieties is a big part of the whole Halloween/autumn season.  I love how it “sets” everything, whether it’s a sunny afternoon with the sun at that low autumnal angle, or delicious grey rain, or a black night with piercingly white stars.

Come, my broom, it’s time to view the world with the moon.

Listen! Ev’ning winds approach to escort us up.

Halloween makes midnight seem candle-lit by stars and screams! 

Ah, Oooh!  Ride and glide as in a dream.

As we rise past curving branches which sweep us high,

Ghosts wave, visiting a time past before the grave.

Halloween makes midnight seem candle-lit by stars and screams! 

Ah, Oooh!  Ride and glide as in a dream.

Down below, the porches glow for Trick-or-Treaters.

Broom, swoop us through cemeteries’ old pretty stones!

Halloween makes midnight seem candle-lit by stars and screams! 

Ah, Oooh!  Ride and glide as in a dream.

How the scent of dry leaves mingles with warm lanterns,

Wafting as a stream into the black sea of night!

Halloween makes midnight seem candle-lit by stars and screams! 

Ah, Oooh!  Ride and glide as in a dream.

“Sleeping Dust – ‘The Death Lullaby’” is the third Halloween Carol I wrote.

It came to me that first day when I decided that we need Halloween carols.  I had played the organ for a funeral, and the autumn equinox was a week away.  “Ghost of John,” the traditional American folk tune, came to my head during the service and I felt the pull to go directly home to my piano and write.

This carol has words, but I decided to release it first without words to show that it is a lullaby, so I hummed it.  You can view the carol in multiple ways.  Something to hum at a gravesite.  Something the living sing to each other to give comfort about death. Something the dead sing to the living … or each other.  This “Ashes to Ashes Version” symbolizes simple beginnings and simple endings with a world of intensity in between.

Here in America, most of us celebrate just Halloween.  But I feel like we are missing out on the complete holiday – the days of the dead – October 31, November 1, and November 2.  In Mexico on November 2, people have picnics on family member’s graves.  In Europe on November 1 and 2, people go in droves to visit the cemeteries.

November 1 and 2 are like Memorial Day.  This past Memorial Day, I went for a bike ride through the graveyard and it was a party!  Totally packed.  Cemeteries are such lovely places and I really think there ought to be parties there all the time.

But then, maybe I like quiet cemeteries the best.  I do like my bike rides through there when no one is around. 

Here are the words on the CD:

Hmmmmmmmm Hmmmmmmmmmm

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Hmmm Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Hmmmmmmm Hmmmmmmmmmmm