Lullaby

The Weepies

I used to sing and play the guitar.  I know. I know, it’s impressive, but I didn’t do it professionally or anything.  I wasn’t even at the amateur open mike night level.   If I absolutely had to categorize it  I would say I was on par with Julie Andrews' Maria in the Sound of Music.  You know, before she became a Von Trapp.   Do, Re, Mi, the Lonely Goat Herder yodeling….that was about my speed.

When I was a kid my mom asked me if I wanted to learn to play a musical instrument.  Wow,  I thought and said yes, yes, yes  I want to learn to play the piano.  Ummmm, nooooo.  A piano won’t fit in our tiny  apartment.  So I thought again and said, yes, yes, yes, I want to learn to play the drums.  Mmmmmmm, not in this lifetime.  So back to the drawing board.   I think I then actually asked if I could learn to play the violin but my mom had already bought me a Yamaha.   So guitar it was.

As an adolescent I used singing and playing as an emotional outlet.  I could pound on the body of the guitar, slap at the strings and yowl a bit and I always felt better.  Later as a young adult and burgeoning lesbian (and drunk), I found that my musical talents came in handy at campfires, parties, and in wooing women.  My wife actually fell in love with me one October because as I was playing a Stevie Nicks song (to a group of women at a retreat center)  I absentmindedly threw my leg up over the arm of the chair I was sitting  in and she mistook it for bravado. 

As I've gotten older I’ve lost interest.   I don’t know why.  I just don’t play anymore much to my wife’s dismay.  One day  I had the music in me, I had the music in me, I had the music in me.  And the next  I didn’t. 

Occasionally,  though, I will hear a song on a commercial or the soundtrack of a show and it will stick in my head until I finally give in and dig out my guitar.  One of these songs, Somebody Loved  has become my lullaby to Sunshine and Happiness.



Here are my favorite lines.

Now my feet turn the corner back home
Sun turns the evening to rose
Stars turning high up above
You turn me into
You turn me into
You turn me into….somebody loved.


Because she did.

The Weepies Acoustic Summer Tour - Pittsburgh, Rex Theater, August 31st