Posts tagged need

I want to write music. But it’s one o’clock in the morning and I have no piano. The formula is in my head, and I think that will last till tomorrow, but I cannot be sure. I want to sit at a piano with a notepad and pencil and no shoes and just write and play and play and write. I want to write about love, loss, laughter - all the cliches. 

It’s been too long since I last sung. I need to sing. I miss my voice. All it seems to do nowadays is talk and discuss things about theatre and politics, all it does is order drinks over the bar and make small talk with customers at work. And underneath that is my true voice, the one that sings with soul, the one that I love and miss. I want to sing again. It makes me feel alive when I sing, it’s the one thing that I can do without feeling self conscious because although I can’t hit the high notes, I know I can do it. I have my own style, my own voice. But it’s getting lost.

I want to sing and sing with someone else. I want harmonies to send shivers down my spine, I want the lyrics to light up the air around me and I want to feel the almost unbearable lightness that comes when you close your eyes and let the music carry you away. I want to feel the room explode with emotion, and it doesn’t matter what that emotion is. Emotion is the fuel of music, emotion is what we need in our lives. 

There is no better feeling for me than standing in front of people and singing, and seeing the look on their faces. That’s the thing about being backstage - people are amazed when you can perform. And I want to do it again.

Scrap that. I need to do it again. 

Tomorrow, I’m going to get all my stuff done, and I’m going to take my clarinet onto campus with me, and I’m going to go into a piano room and write some music. I need to sing again. I need the music.

People join us in many ways. Some just show up carrying suitcases, their faces both hopeful and resigned and thinking “Is this what we’ve ended up at?” Others we find on the wayside of the morning, in the shady time between night and sunrise, sitting with dead eyed stares and only nothingness for company. We don’t take just anyone. The skills come in time - great if you have them, doesn’t matter if you don’t - but what we look for is that need. The longing that you get in the pit of your stomach that you cannot quite explain. You have to yearn for it.

People join us in many ways, like hitting the ground from a skyscraper. You either jump, or you are pushed.