Dancing in the Dark

Annamaria on Monday

I've written here a few times about my love (and profound need for) music of all sorts.  When Duke Ellington first became popular, a critic, I believe from the New York Times, said he was wasting his talent on jazz, that he had the capacity to become a great classical pianist.  The Duke, it is said, rejected any categorization of types of music.  He said there are only two kinds of music: Good and Bad.  I follow his lead.  I like modern jazz as well as baroque, and tango as well as Beethoven.  As long as it is good, it's music to my ears.

That said, I am particularly found of the great American songbook.  It was very likely what was playing on the radio when and where I was born.  My early days in a working class family did not include exposure to great literature, so as a kid I did not learn about the English poets.  My poetry was the lyrics of the songs on my Uncle Joe's record collection.

Though I now have a degree in literature, I still see those words as poetry, and a lot of it is excellent.  Here is an example-one of my absolute favorites, written by Howard Dietz, to a tune by Arthur Schwartz for the 1931 review The Band Wagon.  To me, it is existential literature. And profound.

Dancing in the dark 'til the tune ends
We're dancing in the dark and it soon ends.
We're waltzing in the wonder of why we're here.
Time hurries by, we're here, and gone.
Lookin for the light of a new love
To brighten up the night, I have you love,
And we can face the music together,
Dancing in the dark. 

What though love is old.
What though song is old.
Through them we can be young.
Hear this heart of mine.
Make yours part of mine.
Dear one, tell me that we're one.
Dancing in the dark 'til the tune ends
We're dancing in the dark, and it soon ends.
We're waltzing in the wonder of why we're here.
Time hurries by, we're here, and gone.
Looking for the light of a new love
To brighten up the night, I have you love,
And we can face the music together,
Dancing in the dark.

 It's too bad that even many of the best singers present it in peppy, light hearted arrangements that belie what the words say.

Listen to it sung by the splendid Jane Monheit, who FINALLY gets it right.

Dancing in the Dark

To me it is a perfect poem for our times.  All kinds of insanity is swirling around us,  all over the world.  Darkness.  We are dancing in the dark.  The only sane response is love.  It is the way for us to "face the music."

Love is the answer.