We spent a fair amount of time last night rehearsing Ashley and Steve’s “Disney on acid” arrangement of Drinking Song. People have asked me before how I feel about writing lyrics and then handing them off to other people to arrange. “How do you know that it’s going to sound how you think it’s going to sound? What if they get it wrong?”
When I wrote this piece of text, I wasn’t hearing trippy music. I didn’t envision pipecleaner fish and an octopus swimming around behind me. I wouldn’t have known if clarinet and ethereal piano sounds were the right instrumentation. Did they get it wrong?
If one bothers to put some thoughts on paper, perhaps one is just hoping to remember what one meant when one comes back to it later. And if one manages to slip those words onto someone else, perhaps she is just hoping that it will have some kind of meaning for them. Any kind of meaning.
The danger, then, is not that the composers will get it wrong, but that they will get it right. I’m not sure that I can hold onto the amplified meaning that this piece now contains for me.
But given that I actually have to sing this – in front of strangers. Who are musically inclined. And sober – I had better hold on tight.