I usually put the SoTW right here at the top. This week I’m saving it for the end. I want you to hear the story before the song.
This is a big day for me. I’m introducing to the world my brand-new baby.
For four years I did little (‘Nothing’, my wife would say) other than write a novel about a short-lived hippie band from rural NE Ohio inadvertently resurrected in 2006 from their oblivion via this miraculous new YouTube thing. The novel’s called The Greatest Band That Never Was, and it’s available for pre-order in time for Christmas/Chanukah shopping [subliminal advertisement].
It’s a big, fun read (none of the ponderous pontificating so typical of SoTW), with an ensemble of 17 characters (including a dog and a house). Lots of stuff happens—entanglements, disentanglements, reentanglements and knotting knots. I think there’s a pretty good chance that someone who enjoys this blog will really enjoy the book. It’s much funnier and has a lot of good music in it.
How, you might well ask, do you have music in a book?
The whole plot of the novel is driven by Decapede’s hippie ballad ‘Creston Gold’, which improbably becomes the very first viral clip on the internet 40 years after being recorded.
My inspiration for this ‘posthumous’ fame came from Eva Cassidy. (Spoiler:) Except that TGBtNW (that’s what I call the tyke) has a happy ending.
The mega-hit song ‘Creston Gold’ that in the book captures the world’s imagination– it doesn’t exist in reality. I made it up. For the book, I had to write actual lyrics. I tried to make them sound like what the Sam Miller in my mind would have written.
The band is in the tawdry Sheek Records studio, at the end of their recording session. Several days earlier, Sam and Kathleen’s intense relationship had begun as they drank the local beer Creston Gold and went skinny-dipping in Lake Hope. The beer, the brewery and its owner figure prominently in the plot.
“Well, ladies and gennelmen,” drawled Junior, standing up, pointing at his watch and stretching, “iss been a pleasure—”
Aaron stood up reluctantly. Vaneshi and Gavin began to unplug their gear and pack up. Kathleen returned her maracas to her bag. Sam was sitting in the corner, strumming a sweet chord progression as the others were rolling up cables.
“Sam, you want to help us?” said Aaron, but Sam continued strumming, and then humming over it a sweet, lilting melody.
“What is that?” asked Gavin.
“Oh, I like it,” said Kathleen.
Sam looked at Kathleen and nodded slightly.
“A new song?” asked Aaron.
“Yeah, I been working on it for a couple of days,” said Sam as he strummed. “Not sure if it’s finished.”
“Can we hear it?” asked Gavin.
They looked up at the booth.
“Sorry, man, I got to—” said Junior over the squeaky speaker.
Through the glass, they saw Bev tug Junior’s hand off the Speak button. She pulled his ear down to her mouth to whisper, even though no one could hear. Junior’s eyes opened wide, he paused, then broke into a wide grin.
“Change in schedule. Y’all can keep on doing your thang for a while,” Junior’s voice squeaked through the speaker. Gavin and Aaron and Vaneshi and Kathleen stared as Bev and Junior left the booth and closed the office door behind them.
Sam reached into the front pocket of his jeans and spread out the contents on a folding chair—some coins, a Zippo lighter, a pack of cigarette papers, and the last chunk of a Tootsie Roll. From his other front pocket he extracted a small tin container, which he stuck back in his pocket. Then he patted his back pocket and withdrew a crumpled copy of the Kiwanis flyer with something scrawled on the back. He flattened it out and slipped the strap of his acoustic guitar over his head. He played a few chords, made some minor tuning adjustments, and hummed a snatch of a melody. He paused to look at Kathleen. Then he began to strum a soft, wistful introduction, full of minor sixths and major sevenths.
Storm clouds are gathering way out there
We should run for cover—but I don’t really care
Lying with you on the ground
Grass and sunlight all around
Nothing’s gonna bring me down
Have another Creston Gold.
Lake Hope lapping at the shore
This must be the place I’ve been looking for
She holds me close and takes me in
To a place I’ve never been
Never want to leave again
Have another Creston Gold
Have another Creston Gold.
And when she holds my hand
I know she understands
Understands …
Sometime tomorrow, we might be far away
All we have for sure is what we have today
The world out there don’t look so kind
But I don’t care, ’cause love is blind
You’re the one thing on my mind
Have another Creston Gold.
Have another Creston Gold.
Have another Creston Gold.
No one spoke as the final chord faded into silence. After a long moment, Kathleen went over to Sam and hugged him from behind, resting her cheek on his back.
Gavin began to clap, slowly and quietly, in hushed appreciation. Vaneshi, and then Aaron, joined in.
“Not bad, man,” said Aaron in earnest admiration, “not bad at all.” Despite everything, he knew a good song when he heard it.
“AABA?” spoke Vaneshi, to everyone’s surprise.
“I guess,” said Sam.
“It’ll be too short,” said Aaron, taking his bass. “Let’s try AAB, Vaneshi, you solo on A, then BA. Yeah?”
“There’s a pair of bongos here,” suggested Gavin meekly. “I thought I’d—”
Everyone assured him that was fine.
Sam showed Aaron and Vaneshi the chord changes. They worked through it, Sam and Vaneshi sitting face to face, both of them playing acoustic guitars, giving the song a sweet, lilting color. Vaneshi played a beautiful harmonic line beginning in the second half of the verse. Aaron surprised them all by suggesting that Kathleen sing it as a counterpoint while he joined them on bass. They ran through the song a few times, respectful and subdued, till they felt they had given it a suitable shape. They ran it twice, three times.
Bev and Junior reappeared in the recording booth.
“Y’all ready?” asked Junior amicably through the speaker.
Bev smiled demurely, though her face was puffy and her cheeks were flushed.
They nailed the song in a single take, and they all felt quite buoyed.
“Closing time, gennelmens an’ ladies,” said a very compliant Junior.
“Well!” said Gavin.
“Well, well, well,” said Aaron.
Sam acknowledged the compliment with a small nod of his head.
“But it’ll be too soft for the demonstration,” added Aaron.
So that’s Decapede’s original megahit. In words.
When I create a character, I usually base it on a real person, whether someone I know in real life or even from the screen. Most important to me is the person’s carriage, the way s/he walks across a room.
I also had a role model for the song. It was The Youngblood’s ‘Sunlight’, one of the sunniest, sweetest, sexiest, lovingest hippiest songs I know. I believe it holds a loving corner in the hearts of a lot of us Woodstock Nation alumni, though the song seems to have been somewhat forgotten of late.
This ‘Creston Gold’, I created it so vividly in my mind—the lilt, the lyric, Sam Miller’s gravelly baritone—that my brain got choked up, like an overloaded hard drive. I had to vacate some space in order to be able to find my shoes.
I went to my old pal, musician extraordinaire Ohad Goldbart, and asked him to write and arrange the song. Ohad’s composed music for a lot of the plays I’ve written and directed. Our collaboration is usually him realizing the foggy thoughts in my head. “Make ‘Creston Gold’ sound just like ‘Sunlight’,” I said.
We went through a bunch of iterations. When I was finally happy (very) with the music, I looked around for someone who sings the way I imagined Sam—something in the Richie Havens/Tim Hardin neighborhood. But I couldn’t find a voice that satisfied me, so I did it myself in my best Sam Miller voice, with some backing vocals by Ohad and the lovely young Netta Druckman.
Someone told me that ‘Creston Gold’ sounds more like America’s ‘Ventura Highway’ than like The Youngbloods’ ‘Sunlight’. What do you think? Or can you think of any other song you imagined as a model for ‘Creston Gold’?
Please don’t mistake my imagined cover of the song for Decapede’s original. Mine is immeasurably inferior, chained to earth by the limits of my talent. Decapede’s song is sublime, touching millions of people’s hearts and lives, unfettered by the constraints of Real Life.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.
So wrote one of my all-time favorite depressives, John Keats (1795—1821), in ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, the one that famously ends with the painted “men and maidens overwrought” telling us living/dying mortals:
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
Scholars have been unable to identify the specific Grecian Urn that inspired Keats. I showed you all my cards. To tell you the truth, I was hesitant to share with you my cover of the imaginary ‘Creston Gold’—the original is so much more beautiful, my cover could only diminish it.
But it’s out there, and I needed a song to help usher in my novel in Song of The Week. So I’ll trust you to hear the sweeter, unheard melody in your mind as you read about it and how it affected so many people in The Greatest Band that Never Was.
Not bad Jeff, for a song that doesn’t exist.
Looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of TGBtNW. Save a seat for me at the launch.
Great song Jeff! Congratulations on the publication of your novel! Michal
mazeltov! amazing, really!
Reading the lyrics and listening to you sing brought a big smile to my face.
Congratulations on publication of the novel. What an achievement! So exciting to see it all come to fruition.