Against All Odds

So, as previously mentioned, this blog will have some training wheels on it. Oh, I don't think I'm ready to review songs every day, or every blog post. Writing thoughts on songs I'm not attached to is not something that I or anyone wants to get involved with. I'm not credible on things I'm not familiar with or passionate about. But today, I had an experience with a song. A revelation. A little diddy called "Against All Odds" by Phil Collins. I don't know what it is about his voice... A dash of Sting, a little bit of Rod Stewart...a snare drum that sounds like a handgun (see every 80s ballad), and then the just utter honesty of it? It's so dumb, the chord progressions are so predictable, when it goes to that Cmaj/D chord on "empty space", it's that musical theatre chord, it's all over the place in Steven Schwartz songs, and it manipulated me. The lyrics are are terrible at points. "We've shared the laughter and the pain/we've even shared the tears." But the chorus. Jesus. I could listen to it over and over again. It's stadium, it's epic, it's absolutely draining. He stole god's mic and plugged in to the speakers of the universe. It's the most massive purging of emotion in a song that I've listened to (lately). And what makes it all the better is that Phil was just this balding, 30something, short brit who played the drums and sang. He's coming from a marginalized place in pop-rock, as if who the fuck should care about his recent divorce with his wife, he dives in, no apologies, and lets us know their ain't a betting chance she's coming back, but he's gonna stand there and take a barrage of internal emotional warfare.

While listening, I regressed to being on the bus in middle school listening to that Mariah Carey/Boyz II Men song "One Sweet Day" while trying to hit on Jessica Chase. (Fruitless, even when she asked me to go out the ski-lift with her). This has happened to me before, just something triggering this listen-fest, as if my heart just opened for the first time. Camus said

A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened.

I don't know what it is about fuckin "Against All Odds", but I tried to describe it here.

Tomorrow I start rehearsing my second play proper with CSC, The Taming of the Shrew. I'm playing Curtis, who will be inspired by Larry Fine. That should prove interesting... I'm never really good at doing that kind of outside-->inside stuff, so it will be good new challenge. The sense that I get is that's how a lot of people work here. I wouldn't know, because as an actor as you get older, you stop talking about your process with people mostly for the better but sometimes for the worse. I hope to understand throughout this year what "ensemble" work is about. So far, I have glimpses of an ensemble idea, and moments of light cracking through, but it's still not cohesive. It gets better every time though, and that's partly me getting my bearings in the company. It's like being a freshman all over again...feeling young, but not knowing really how to flaunt my youth.

Lord, to be 17 forever.....

Until then