Make It Through Sundays

There's a great Lucinda Williams song, called "Sundays" that so often seems appropriate on our gray winter days. As a kid I really disliked Sundays. Monday and school followed inevitably and that was a bummer. This has diminished slightly as I've grown older, but Lucinda's song still strikes a familiar feeling for me.

I can't seem to make it through Sunday
I can't seem to make it through Sunday
Monday through Saturday I get by just fine,
Every other day of the week, I feel all right.
But I don't know why, I don't know why....
I can't seem to make it through Sunday.

Yesterday was a Sunday that broke the pattern, however. Glorious sunshine in the morning, and even though it was cold, the birds were singing, including the male in our side-yard pair of bluebirds. Mr. Blue sang and waved his wings while his mate ducked in and out of our side-yard bluebird house. No word on whether he got lucky later.

Heading into the Blennerhassett Hotel for my Sunday gig, I hear a very randy mourning dove calling from the top of the Parkersburg courthouse annex. The natural reverb between the large buildings on this quiet street really augmented his song, and I wondered if he chose this spot for its acoustics. He certainly didn't choose it for its natural habitat--there's very little.

The Sunday morning mourning dove sounded great singing from his terra cotta stage.

I think this mourning dove uses this perch frequently.

Back home in the afternoon it was practice time for The Swinging Orangutangs. Visit Julie's funny blog about our practice for the straight dope. Man, it felt great to play with the full band again. So good, in fact, that I completely forgot to take any pix to share with you here, until practice was over and we were in Orangutangs' Afterglow. So here are a few apres-prakky pix.Julie and Steve, basking in the glow of another righteous O'Tang Clan practice.

Vinnie, smashing up Steve's drums after our Sunday afternoon practice. Hope his parole officer does not find out.

We ran over about 15 songs from our existing repertoire, chiseling off the rust from our hands and voices (our last gig was back in October) and learned three new tunes. One was "Lick Your Boots" by Eels, a quirky, spacy song. Another was an original composition by Andy called "My Baby's Like an ATM." Jade, I'm sure he is not referring to you in this song--it's not about anyone specific.

And finally, the band helped me flesh out a bridge for my latest effort, called "Trying to Forget You." It's the first slow tempo song I've written in a long time. This line-up of our band is very cohesive, so it's a good place to ask for advice on lyrics and chord changes. Vinnie, who is playing bass with us, suggested an E-flat chord that really fit nicely. The song is sad, but pretty, and as the band played through it a final time, I realized how lucky I am to have music in my life, and good friends and family with whom to play it.

It makes it easier to make it through Sundays. And through life in general.