A NEW SONG (A POLKA?)

As this is written, I'm waiting for a mix of "Turn Your Radio On" to be delivered by the Studio Guy. We recorded everybody's parts this afternoon. I think it'll turn out okay. I try not to interfere with the recoridng process, but kept wanting to tell everybody not to be so restrained (voices, particularly, sound flat if they're tentative)–they really did sound better live. It was a new experience for most of ‘em, though–only Wayne, the lead guitarist, had spent any time in a recording studio.

The studio gear is portable, and recording the Friday Night Group (I think I would like him to do that) may entail packing up the studio gear and taking it down to City Hall's Dance Floor and doing it there. If the limitations of the hall can be compensated for (low, acoustic tile ceiling, hard-surface cinderblock walls, and a big floor area–the Dance Floor is a sound engineer's Hell), it really would be better to record the Friday Night Group live. As far as material goes, only three of the Group have written original songs (actually, that's pretty good–two of them started doing it after me), and we want to avoid covers because of the licensing headaches; it may be best to simply do an album of traditional Gospel songs.

This week's original song (first one in a while) is a polka–or should have been a polka, for St. Leif's Day. St. Leif is (or was) Swedish; his claim to fame was saving the ants by taking them one by one into his house and feeding them stale popcorn through the winter. Sort of an odd version of St. Francis of Assisi. (St. Leif is also supposed to be the patron saint of bagpipes.) Now, all this is very difficult to take seriously, and I didn't try. My St. Leif dance is "The Six-Legged Polka." It's delivered straight-faced, but that's about where the seriousness stops. Thing is, I can see this being performed by a dance troupe, in traditional costumes, with little antennae on their heads–it would be a hoot. I wonder if anyone would be willing to do it?

Did St. Leif actually exist? I don't think so; in light of the song, I rather hope not–I could get some Divine Retribution out of it if the Powers That Be ever heard it. It was more an exercise–taking what little was known about the saint (ants, check; winter, check; saving, check; popcorn, check) and building a song that sorta made sense around it–the sort of thing that really could be performed as a traditional dance (if the dancers didn't speak any English). Tongue planted firmly in cheek, of course; it feels at home there.

Not knowing much about polkas (except that they're very fast two-steps), I asked some of the accordion players in the Friday Night Group for advice; best suggestion I got was that a polka was "bluegrass on steroids." So the "Six-Legged Polka" is basically bluegrass music, and maybe if I can get a couple more "polkafied" musicians to join in, it'll sound more like the real thing.