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I've been by the sea on and off for a few weeks now. The Girls are coming in on Jet Skis. The songs seem to know where to find me. Writing a work through the channeling of the seasons---autumn, winter, spring, summer---has an impact on the work. If you figure in the tastes and the aromas that go along with the changes, the seasonings---the herbs growing in the garden, which make their way into Dunc's kitchen; the burning of fires that happens in autumn; or just the budding offspring . . . all of that is woven into a song's tapestry. "Washington Square" or "Garlands" (I'm still wavering on the title: clearly you will know as you read this which one I chose in the end) was written when we were frozen in---sorta like when it's too dangerous to drive because of icy roads here in the west country of England. I started this song in the autumn, when we were in Boston doing a big radio show in October 2003, and then I couldn't find its foundation until we were iced in down in Cornwall. I bundled up and took a walk with my boots on, bundled up in Husband's ever-ready big bomber jacket, until I wandered back around, not to the house, but the barn, smelling fires on the way, making a beeline for the Bose. Isabella was waiting there for me in a shaft of light by the piano and she said, "Write me in a song. I want access to this dimension." I said, "Talk with me awhile." I just started playing something random so as not to lose the moment. Then she said, "You're still hurting." I asked her, "To what are you referring?" She said," "I was there that day." I asked, "What day?" "That day when you walked through Washington Square and I saw a tear you were hiding, and I held up a candle to guide you." I looked at this glorious vision of light, and I giggled softly. "Well, Isabella, we know which song you are in, then, don't we?" She held me a moment and then danced back into the shaft of light from which she had come. I finished "Washington Square" (or "Garlands") that day.
The word garlands has been married to the melody since its inception, had wanted to be used but had eluded me for months, mainly because I associated it with the ancient custom of wreaths and flowers for weddings, funerals, and celebrations as old as Beltane and May Day. That day after Isabella sparked my . . . I guess you call it my sixth sense---she had turned up the volume on that one---I started to have a funny feeling that my definition of garlands was the reason that I couldn't weave this tapestry together. I sat down on this old couch that supposedly came from Russia in the nineteenth century; I've had it re-covered at least three times because of coffee stains and baby dribble, but it's my thinking spot, and it's my dolphin couch because of the two brass dolphins on either side. I have it in a sagelike material, which reminds me of New Mexico, that plateau covered with white sage right by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. I looked at the color of the wall, which I had painted to remind me of those New Mexican skies, this creamy tangerine, or as Tash would say, vanilla Satsuma pudding color.
It drew me to pick up a book that would have drawings in it. I had just that week opened a box of art books that I had gotten on my travels. Many were still in their plastic wrappings on the floor. One caught my eye, and there it was. A book of Chagall lithographs. These garlands of lithographs---bundles bursting in color---are what the lovers in the story use to chronicle their love affair. Our lovers meet in Washington Square and go uptown to see the Chagall exhibition. As they walk in and out of these pictures, we get a vision of their love for each other, some of the beliefs that they're wrestling with, and a dark force in their relationship that seems to be coming between them, whether it's his father or her professor at art school who seems to be wanting to control the path her talent takes, a little too possessive in Isabella's opinion. I decided to notate the lyrics in this CD booklet so that Chagall's painting titles were italicized and that way people could go and reference the lithographs visually, which also influenced the phrasing of the music.
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