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Here’s my story, it’s sad but true

About a girl that I once knew

She took my love, then ran around

With every single guy in town

It’s something I can’t quite explain

I’m so in love with you

You’ll never take that away

And if I’ve said a hundred times before

Expect a thousand more

You’ll never take that away

So expect me to be

Calling you to see

If you’re okay when I’m not around

Asking “if you love me”

I love the way you make it sound

Calling you to see

Do I try too hard to make you smile?

To make a smile

Well I will keep calling you to see

If you’re sleeping are you’re dreaming

If you’re dreaming, are you dreaming of me

I can’t believe you actually picked me

“Hey, honey it’s me”

“It’s the middle of the night. Why are you calling me? Is everything okay?”

“Were you sleeping?”

“Well, yeah! It’s 3am”

“Were you dreaming of me?”

“No, I was dreaming about how great it would be to have a boyfriend who doesn’t call me in the middle of the night to ask what I was dreaming about!”

 

One of the luckiest breaks I ever got in my music career was when César de Anda hired me to be the lead singer of his classic rock cover band The Black Sheep in Puerto Vallarta. I say it was lucky not because I made so much money (I didn’t) or because it moved my music career forward (it didn’t), but because of all the lessons I learned from César about how to be professional working-class musician. Here are the top three:

1. Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable. Mexicans and musicians are both groups that are not really known for being on time, but César was one of the most punctual people I’ve ever met. And the way he did it was to require everyone in the band to arrive at least an hour before the show started. In the four years I worked with him, we only started the show late once (by about three minutes), and that was because I was running late. I’ve since adopted this habit for my own gigs – I plan out my day to arrive an hour and a half before the show starts, so that way if I’m a half-hour late, I’m still an hour early. Hell, I could be an hour late and I would still arrive half-an-hour early. Always shoot for early. If you miss, you’ll still be on time. The stress of being late, or even thinking you might be late, is not worth the time you saved by leaving the house later.

2. If you want to get paid like a professional, you have to look and act like a professional. One time I showed up at César’s house to carpool to a gig and I was wearing shorts, planning to change after we arrived and got set up. César said “No, change now”. He knew something it took me a while to figure out: you’re on stage from the moment you arrive. People are watching. Whenever we would set up for a gig, all the bags and guitar cases had to be hidden behind the stage. He wouldn’t even let me have a water bottle next to the mic stand if it looked cheap and tacky.

3. It’s not (just) about the music. Officially, The Black Sheep was a classic rock band, but we only played classic rock about 60% of the time. We also played funk, reggae, jazz, country, disco, and even a couple of songs from Grease. If there were a bunch of kids in the audience, we’d bring ‘em all up front and lead them in a song called Pajaritos a Bailar (sort of a Mexican version of the chicken dance). César knew that no one was hiring us to play “classic rock”. They were hiring us to put on a show and keep people entertained. To be a successful musician, you have to let go of your own ego and do what it takes to make people happy.

César has been very successful and makes a full-time living as a drummer and band manager. He’s expanded the Black Sheep into a sort of franchise; on any given night, there could be as many as three bands in Vallarta performing as The Black Sheep, and all of these musicians know to follow César’s rules, even if he’s not there. There may be some musicians out there who wouldn’t think of that as “making it”, since he’s only playing covers and not touring, but he’s making a full-time living and supporting his wife and kids doing what he loves. That’s pretty successful in my book. Meanwhile, all of the too-cool-for-school, I-don’t-do-covers-man “artists” I meet in Seattle still have day jobs.

I first heard this song as sung by Vicente Fernandez, a classic singer of Mexican rancheras. His version is maudlin and over-the-top, as all rancheras are (usually in a good way). A couple years later, I was studying in Spain, and our grammar teacher used the title as an example and said it was a Spanish song. I ignorantly informed her that it was a Mexican song by Vicente Fernandez (nowadays, we would call that man-splaining). But she was right and I was wrong, and I’ve come to love the original version by Jose Luis Perales, an old-fashioned songwriter who might not have been famous today with his simple unassuming style and earnest lyrics.

Here’s a translation to give you an idea:

Looking in your eyes, I could swear
That you’ve got something new to tell me
Go ahead, love, don’t be afraid
Perhaps by tomorrow it’ll be too late
Perhaps by tomorrow it’ll be too late

And what’s he like?
Where did he fall in love with you?
Where’s he from?
What does he do with his free time?
Ask him for me:
Why has he stolen a piece of my life?
He’s a thief
Who has taken everything from me

Start getting ready now, dear
It’s getting late
And take an umbrella in case it rains
He’ll be waiting to love you
And I’ll be jealous over losing you
Bundle up
That gray dress looks good on you
Smile
So he doesn’t suspect that you’ve been crying
And leave me here
To start packing my bags
And forgive me
If I ask you one more question:

What’s he like?
Where did he fall in love with you?
Where’s he from?
What does he do with his free time?
Ask him for me:
Why has he stolen a piece of my life?
He’s a thief
Who has taken everything from me

I like how even though it’s emotionally raw, there’s a maturity and a sense of resignation there. He’s sad, jealous even, but he’s not angry. He’s accepted his fate and he’s going to handle it with as much dignity as he can. It seems like most break-up songs (in all languages, but especially in Spanish), tend to lack this sense of stoicism. Maybe because Jose Luis was 36 when he wrote it? I know that as I’ve gotten older, my songs have gotten less desperate and needy and more grown up. Because really, in the game of love, whether you win or lose, it’s important to be a good sport.

Update: I recorded a version of this and added English subtitles

(I used to write a page of rhymes every morning, but one day I was behind schedule, so I just set a timer for ten minutes and wrote as fast as possible, and I found that the time constraint was an extra aid in beating back the crippling perfectionism. Now I do this every day. Here’s today’s entry.)

I have been single for almost 5 years now. But during that time, I have been in love many times, perhaps too many times to count.

Since I’m still single, it would seem that none of these loves ended “happily ever after”, and I guess that’s true, if your idea of “happily ever after” is to settle down and get married, have a white picket fence and 2.5 kids. But I’m happy. And I think most of them are happy. So who’s to say we didn’t live happily ever after?

Some of these loves ended because one of us moved to a different city or a different country. And one of the reasons I decided to move to Seattle permanently and stop vagabonding around was to be able to let something develop, instead of always getting up half-way through the movie, so to speak. But I don’t regret the ones that ended…

Just because we’re not together anymore, doesn’t mean we don’t still love each other.

But plenty of them ended because the other person didn’t want to be with me. Because they went back to an ex, or because they found someone else more mature than me who was ready to commit. Did it hurt? You bet it did. But I’ve had my heart broken many times. It’s an occupational hazard, a mild hangover compared to the dizzying, ecstatic high of being in love. And since I have high self-esteem and I love myself, rejection doesn’t destroy me the way it used to when I was younger. After all,

Just because YOU don’t love me, doesn’t mean I’m not lovable.

Some of them I don’t know why they ended, because the person just gradually faded out of my life without a clear reason or even a goodbye really, and those are the ones that hurt the most. And some of them ended because the passion faded away and we realized we weren’t compatible. And that’s ok, too…

Just because our love is gone now, doesn’t mean it wasn’t real while it lasted.

And I think that’s what bothers so many people about Valentine’s Day: this idea that the only REAL love is being in a committed, permanent, monogamous relationship, and that if you haven’t found it yet you’re failing at life.

But I think that’s complete nonsense.

I think love is everywhere.

I think you can love someone you know you’re not going to spend the rest of your life with. That’s what my song Weekend Girlfriend is about, as much as people like to laugh at the chorus because they think it’s about casual sex (not that there’s anything wrong with that), it’s really a love song about a girl I was completely smitten with who was about to leave the country. (We never even had sex, actually, but I wrote three songs about her.)

I think love is a gift that should be given freely, not a cage to try to put someone in.

I think you can love someone you’ve just met, and even someone you’ve never met.

I think you can love every person you pass on the sidewalk every day, if only for a moment to look into their eyes and recognize your shared humanity and know that we’re all in this together.

I think you can love yourself and you can flood your own brain with the same happy chemicals that you get from another person when you just recognize the overwhelming power of the love that permeates the entire universe, that drives everything in this great quest for life, for connection, for beauty, and for love.

It’s said that “A man who would have friends must show himself friendly”, and I think that’s the secret to attracting more love into your life: be more loving. Believe in love, feel love, BE love. When you realize that love is everywhere, you stop having a scarcity mindset about it, and you can give it freely out of the abundance in your heart. And then you automatically start attracting wonderful people into your life, as if by magic.

In Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries, Valentine’s Day is called Día de Amor y Amistad – Day of Love and Friendship, and I like how that downplays the exclusively romantic connotations it seems to have here in the U.S.

So, today I wish you love and friendship, and that your heart will be open to love in all of its forms.

I love you.

You are loved.

Don’t ever forget that.

(I set a timer and write as many rhyming lines as I can in ten minutes. Sometimes something half-way decent comes out.)

Through the foggy mists inside my head, I see the merry song
That I’ve been scratching at the surface of to keep my pleasure strong
To give up all my petty vanities and listen to the muse
Who’s trying to tell me what to say, but I have been so long confused
And in the breezes coming off the sea, I feel your luscious smile
And I would let it carry me away for 15-hundred miles
And I would float with you in paradise and laugh at all the lies
That I have told myself incessantly, rejecting my own prize
To breathe the sweet poetic air and find my footsteps in the sand
Without a thought for all the petty cares and trivial demands
And in the slow ecstatic moment where I live my luscious life
I see eternities unfolding, far away from all the strife

The lonely plant is feeling dry again
Its fronds are drooping sadly in the sun
Does it want rain, or does it want a friend?
What does a lonely houseplant do for fun?

Is there a family that it’s longed to see
Since it was rooted up and trucked away?
And does it know how dangerous life can be
Out in the world of predator and prey?

Or is it just fine, thank you very much,
With boring safety in my boring home?
Or does it yearn for freedom, love, and such
An earth where all its roots are free to roam?

With cold and heat, and bugs and birds attacking
And other plants competing for its soil
The pain when random animals come snacking
Or creeping vines come choke it in their coils.

And does it have the sense to understand
The choices that it doesn’t even have?
These silly questions pondered on by man
The existential angst that drives us mad?

Or is it free of struggle and concern
And doesn’t try to do but only be?
And is that something I would want to learn
If all my wanderings never make me free?

There’s a creepy, anxious feeling in the cold November air
‘Cause all the progress that we’ve made is now at risk and we are scared
Of all the monsters that we thought we’d slain, but only pushed aside
But they grew stronger while we looked away, and now they plan to ride
Across the vast terrain of desolation, cackling all the way
The venom spewing from their mouths as they wreak havoc and decay
And all the children and the refugees are wondering where they stand
And whether love can ever conquer hate in this benighted land

(I try to write about a page worth of rhyming lines every morning, without worrying about structure or content, just to exercise the muscle of rhyming. Usually it’s complete nonsense, but sometimes something interesting takes shape. Here’s one example:)

The wonder of the sanity I cherished
The crude, unwelcome livery of doom
Has led us to a place where we will perish
And no one will be left to hear the boom

The reason for my tired and lonely scribblings
That lean so hard on oft-repeated words
And never find their lovers, friends, or siblings
And breathe their echoes silent and absurd

The wounded heart, the breathless gasp of nothing
That left its bitter footsteps in my mind
To smile at demons, though they know I’m bluffing
And in their energy I feel more kind

The curtains hanging lonely in the balance
Have left my lonely room bereft of light
And echoed in the slow loss of my talents
Like broken eggs that never tasted flight

The summer sun brings new life to my garden
Where all the children never come to play
But each passing season leaves the ground more hardened
For I never know just who I’ll be today

And my effervescent sense of inspiration
That flew off on the winds behind your plane
Has left behind a long-bemused frustration
Of sun-dried hearts still longing for the rain

While the scratching cries of anguish fill my eardrums
And the green, ecstatic nonsense bides its time
How I wish your lust could save me from these doldrums
While I sit here trying to come up with a rhyme

The moments that were stretched out in my memory
And filled my heart with so much more than love
Are the ones that haunt my broken-hearted reverie
Giving space to all the words I’m thinking of