Hold On To Your Dreams

I've made a new movie star collage.


When I was a child, Mother and I went to the
movies all the time.
I pinned up movie star photos on
the wall of my back porch bedroom.

This is a story of how I came to compose

Hold On To Your Dreams.

It was late in the fall of 2000,

I was re-reading The Cry for Myth

On page 57 Rollo May had talked

about remembering a poem

as he crossed his college campus.

It was called

Hold Fast To Your Dreams

I was tired from working on recording

songs I’d written,

it was late at night,

so I rested and did some

improvisation, 
and hit five perfect notes

that fit 

Hold-On-To-Your-Dreams.

That’s the magic of composing music,

those same five notes in a different

rhythm or order,

could be a hundred other songs.

There is no more thrilling moment

than when you know you’ve

just composed a great song.

A Georgia State of Mind

was like that.

Morning Tears was like that, too.

For the middle part of the song,

I wrote the words first,

then I wrote notes

to go with these words:

And if you are not a great exception

yourself -- well, then

be a small one -- at least,

that your efforts may inspire others

as well.

A paraphrase of a quote from

Neitzsche that Rollo May had used

on that same page.

Using those words

made the melody

interestingly unpredictable

because of fitting notes

around those syllables 

The end of the lyrics:

Hold On to your dreams

even if they start to fade,

And don’t run and hide

If they seem to be denied

At least you know, you tried

So hold fast to your dreams

Give them wings to fly,

Hold on to your dreams, tonight

Coda: Everyone has a dream.

I narrated a story with photos

behind the Hold On To Your Dreams

music and the original

version made the BBC Short List

for a 2-min. My Story contest.

I couldn't resist this new ending .

“And Now It’s On YouTube,

Better than A Tombstone.”

Have a listen

stay tuned

scroll down for more blogs

=======

Silent Dreams: - The Waltz

Because of Love

I Am the Music!

========

SILENT DREAMS - A WALTZ

SILENT DREAMS: A musical-within-a-musical

set in 1955, near Broadway.

It revolves around the death

of a long time Boarding House resident,

Jana Medrova, who played piano for the Silent Movies.

She leaves a diary revealing an affair with Valentino.

===

The opening of the play

starts with Jana Medrova’s singing

(overhead in darkness)

What is your Silent Dream?

What is your soul longing for?

I have made up the entire story

out of my imagination

and written her a waltz.

Her verse goes like this:

Once upon a cinema mist,

I dreamed of being wantonly kissed,

By a turbaned sheik,

in a desert tryst,

But that was long, long, ago . . .

(chorus)

Silent Dreams,

All those Silent Dreams,

Melting your heart,

with the tenderest thought,

All those wonderful Silent Dreams.

(the boarding house)

The musical reflects my own longings.

~ ~ ~

Art imitating life.

Life imitating art.

Like this photo I took this morning.

===

For me, 

Life is never as easy

 -- nor as hard -- 

as I would like to make it --

just muddling my way

somewhere between

lobster bisque

and Drano.

which is why flowers help

And Rune Stones

So, today I drew two 

to receive some guidance

and try to balance myself.

I drew Sowelu, the Sun

Then Wunjo, Joy,

The Rune Stone messages

 for me today,

is to 

stop writing the Memoir.

My shoulder has tendonitis

and my right eye is red and blurry.

(Occupational hazards).

I feel like time is running out, though.

as does Jana Medrova.

she sings in the Coda:

But dreams are for yesterday

when time is running short,

so, remember to live,

to love, and forgive.

Follow your heart,

And you’ll find

such peace of mind

in those wild and precious

Silent Dreams. 

~~~

Maybe, in the greater scheme of things,

when the garden is bare,

and my workspace cluttered

putting a waltz called

Silent Dreams

on YouTube

is enough.

Do what you love

and that will be enough.

~ ~ ~

And maybe a waltz won’t save the world

or the whales

or the males,

But maybe it could.

~~~

I’m still a dreamer,

like all my characters.

What do you think?

Are we nothing more than the

choices we make?

I’m a skeptic, too, so I’m not sure.

More likely sound and fury

signifying nothing,

nothing at all.

~ ~ ~

My Six Word Memoir

(Have you heard of those?)

“Learning To Be A Good Loser”

Stay tuned . . .

SCROLL down for more posts

“Because of Love”

“I AM THE MUSIC”