some kind of music

I stand at your gate and the song that I sing is of moonlight
I stand and I wait for the touch of your hand in the June night
The roses are sighing a Moonlight Serenade.

The stars are aglow and tonight how their light sets me dreaming.
My love, do you know that your eyes are like stars brightly beaming?
I bring you and I sing you a Moonlight Serenade

Let us stray till break of day in love's valley of dreams.
Just you and I, a summer sky, a heavenly breeze kissin' the trees.

So don't let me wait, come to me tenderly in the June night.
I stand at your gate and I sing you a song in the moonlight
A love song, my darling, a Moonlight Serenade. (“Moonlight Serenade”, by Mitchell Parish and Glenn Miller)

It is a gray day in LA, not too many of them and sometimes not enough. The chill in the air the dark skies tempted me to maybe watch a bit of television before heading out for chores and activities. I had been inundated with the pundits and provocateurs regaling and recalling the bigoted votes for bogus candidates running in the primaries last night, so no politics today. The game between Baltimore and New England hasn’t started, and as a Steeler fan I am not too sure how guilty I would feel to watch it anyway so there is not much choice.

With well over three hundred channels of TV nothing really felt like the correct choice to cuddle on the sofa and just chill as the outside weather was chilled. Playing the remote control game I happened upon Turner Movie Classic and ‘The Glenn Miller’ story was playing. And as I happened upon this movie, the plot took us to the time when Glenn Miller was finessing the final version of his soon to be classic big band tune, ‘Moonlight Serenade’.

I was not even born when “Moonlight Serenade” became popular in 1937, and I was too young to have ever danced in one of those nightclubs glorified in the black and white movies where a 24 piece band played while the dancers swayed. I do remember my Aunt Meercy playing her 78LP on Saturdays as she cleaned her house and I also remember my aunt teaching me how to ask a lady to dance and then demonstrating to me how a gentleman leads and makes that same lady feel as light as a feather while the two of them fly across the dance floor.

I also remember something that seems unbelievable at least for me to even consider happening. When I hear many of the songs played by the big bands, and “Moonlight Serenade” in particular I stop, close my eyes and in a hazy woozy kind of backlit dreamy scene, I remember vaguely, being alive and listening to the music when it was new and fresh. Weird, but somehow for me any time and every time I hear ‘Moonlight Serenade’, I recall a time of my life mainly with shadow and hues of charcoal and grey but a time in which I lived. I never quite figure out where I am when the music comes alive in my memory, I am not sure who I am when the rhythm and the beat are sounded, and when my brain takes me back in time it is as if I am looking in a mirror while struck with terrible cataracts.

I know my partner Joe and I talk about wouldn’t it be great if, just like the movies, there could be mood music, theme music, background instrumentals playing as we went though our lives. Crescendos, violins, orchestral symphonies, big band soundtracks motivating, stimulating, persuading us as we traversed event to event, situation to situation, moment to moment. Music unique to us but shared for the world to hear. Music explaining to the world how even if we are like one instrument, when we play our music together we become whole and like a symphony or big band the harmonies blend beautifully.

I have been blessed to love creating music, dancing to music, tapping my feet to music and finding great meaning and measure with each note played. I also believe that some of that music is a road map for me to understand my past, enjoy my present and face the future. I still believe that maybe in a past life, if those do exist, listening closely to music I may find answers for questions I have no idea how to ask.

Whether or not as a young person listening to the radio channeling through the static to find a clear station, was in an army uniform waiting to fight WWII, a man about to launch my career, I somehow know when ‘Moonlight Serenade’ plays I stop and try hard to recall something that is just a milliliter away from remembering. It just seems so almost ready to be revealed to me.

I do believe that there is music being played as we struggle, thrive and live our lives. I do believe that all of us add our own notes and chords to the music played. And I do believe that when there is peace, accord, and respect demonstrated and delivered the sounds erupting, emitted are harmonious and heart stopping, that is when we sing together.

The skies outside are now turning from dull to sunny, ‘The Glenn Miller Story’ has finished and it is time to go on with my day. I smile as still playing in my head is “Moonlight Serenade”, and I secretly say goodbye to all those people with whom I am sure I had shared this tune sometime in my past.