The lost sense of song lyrics

I’ve been doing some homework in preparation for seeing the “American Idiot” musical on Broadway.

I’ve printed out the lyrics to the songs in the musical as a study guide to help me understand the story on stage.

I’m not that dense when it comes to the thread of a production’s story. My problem is that I have a hard time lately picking up the lyrics of certain rock songs.

The the music of “American Idiot” by the punk rock band Green Day is about as hard as it gets for me.

I don’t have a problem with other musicals -- “Camelot,” “South Pacific,” “Music Man,” “Wicked,” even “Tommy” which orginated from the rock opera by The Who.

But Green Day is a challenge.

I hear the music, but my aging sense of hearing doesn’t let me pick up the lyrics.

In fact, I have a long history for mis-hearing what’s sung or said.

There was the Christmas several years ago when my sister opened a gift. I wasn’t looking at her but I heard her say, “Oh good, a Yoda hat.”

Huh? What an odd gift, I thought turning to look.

It turned out the gift was a yoga mat.

For the longest time, I thought the line from the Beatles song “I’ll Follow the Sun” was: “One day, you’ll look, to see a gun...”

Turns out in their British lilt they were actually singing: “One day, you’ll look, to see I’ve gone...”

Popular culture is filled with misheard lyrics, so I’m not the only one.

John Fogarty, when he was with Clearance Clearwater Revival, famously sang: “There’s a bathroom on the right” when in fact it was “there’s a bad moon on the rise”.

So I’m not taking any chances when it comes to “American Idiot”.

When they sing “One, 21 guns …”, I don’t want to be hearing “One, 21 puns....”

When they sing “Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me; ‘til then I’ll walk alone” I don’t want to be hearing “Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me; ‘til then I’ll walk on home”.

It could just completely skew the whole meaning of the performance.

Manipulating the calendar

We can't turn back time, but we can manipulate the calendar to make our lives a little easier.

There are two recent cases of what I call "calendar manipulation".

The first is this whole issue of the new astrological calendar, and the fact that some people aren't the sign of the zodiac that they used to be.

In my case, according to the new calendar order, I'm no longer a Gemini.

The astronomers from the Minnesota Planetarium Society argue a slight new tilt of the earth's axis means the alignment of the stars was pushed by about a month.

The result, they say, is a zodiac calendar alignment that gives a lot of people a whole new outlook on how the moon, the stars and the sun influence their lives.

The new alignment looks like this:

• Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16.
• Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11.
• Pisces: March 11-April 18.
• Aries: April 18-May 13.
• Taurus: May 13-June 21.
• Gemini: June 21-July 20.
• Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10.
• Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16.
• Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30.
• Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23.
• Scorpio: Nov. 23-29.
• Ophiuchus: Nov. 29-Dec. 17.
• Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20.

The fact is that this calendar isn't new at all. The ancient Babylonians had 13 constellations that included Ophuchicus, the snake holder. But they ultimately voted him off the island. Libra didn't even enter the picture until the era of Julius Caesar.

Some people might find the new zodiac make-up more to their liking. They'll accept the calendar to find a better fit for who they think they are ... ir who they think they want to be.

I'm perfectly happy with the somewhat schizoid personality of the twins. So I think this particular calendar manipulation is totally bull, so to speak.

To borrow the comment from a friend, I'll change my birthday before I become anything but a Gemini, especially a Taurus.

There is a manipulation I freely admit to.

I use the so-called meteorological calendar to measure the seasons.

For me:

Summer = June, July, August

Fall = September, October, November

Winter = December, January, February

Spring = March, April, May

I like the ease of it ... no having to remember whether summer starts on the 21st of June or the 20th or the 19th or whenever the solstice takes place during that particular month.

My summer starts on June 1. Yours?

The fact that winter ends at the end of February, helps me get through the winter a little more easily, especially this particular winter..

For me, there's only about six weeks of winter left.

For the rest of you, there's about eight weeks.

I like my calculation better.

Real men cry, right?

I'm not a big fan of the new Speaker of the House.

But I support the fact that sometimes he is the Weeper of the House.

John Boehner (see picture at left), a Republican from Ohio, is prone to tearing up when he gets emotional about certain things.

Earlier this year, as he related in media interviews his personal and political journey to become speaker of the house for the 112th Congress, he'd cry.

That has let to a lot of ribbing. It was the New York Daily News who in a headline dubbed him "Weeper of the House".

But I'm OK with a guy who wears his emotions on his sleeve, or -- in Boehner's case -- on the handkerchief he keeps in his pocket to cry into.

There are some things in some people -- man or woman -- that trigger strong emotions and their outlet is to cry.

For me, anything associated with children can set me off, especially when they are my children.

Years ago, when I was editor of a local newspaper, we got into a bit of a spat over editorial content with members of the local teachers union, one of whom was my daughter's Elizabeth's grade school teacher.

I remember being at a meeting and crying over the prospect that my fight as editor of the paper with the teacher's union might somehow trickle down and affect my daughter in the classroom.
It never happened, but my thinking that it could was upsetting enough to get me to weep.

I teared up listening to President Obama the other night in Arizona talk about 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, shot dead by the gunman in the supermarket rampage. He talked of how she was becoming aware of the nation's democracy and she wanted to be a part of it.

"She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted," said the president.

"I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us - we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations."

There are other weepers I am proud to be in a league with -- tennis player Andre Agassi and baseball legend Lou Gehrig, to name two. See a Boston Globe gallery of famous men who've cried.

Boehner doesn't get my political backing. But I've got his back when it comes to crying.

Hey, I carry a handkerchief too.

My Christmas moment that became plural

The regular readers among you know how much I look forward to the "Christmas moment" -- that moment of spiritual peace that comes over me at some point during the holiday season that comes just before or after Dec. 25.

It's not something I go looking for, necessarily, it's just something that happens, and in years past it's usually been associated with music.

For this Christmas, there wasn't a particular moment; there wasn't a big bang moment of spiritual warmth.

Part of it, I think, was due to the frenetic nature of this particular holiday. My wife Jane and I were on the road for about 11 days, visiting family and friends in New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Connecticut.

Living out of a traveling bag was fine, but a bit unsettling to my routine.

As a result, there were small moments to discover -- smaller pops that hit me at various times during the Christmas season. And they found me in some likely and unlikely places.

There was the moment in our church -- St. Thomas More in Durham, N.H. -- where we attended a sing-a-long of Handel's "Messiah". We weren't there to sing, which put us in the minority. We were asked a couple of times which section -- alto, soprano, bass -- we'd like to join.

But we were there to listen, to enjoy the stir of the music that resonates the meaning of Christmas.

There was the moment in my home office/music room when I played Christmas songs on a new guitar my wife Jane and I had bought as a Christmas present for a nephew. My intent was to infuse this new guitar with all kinds of acoustic music -- Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Paul Simon.

Dulcet tones from "What Child is This" and "First Noel" completed the infusion for this guitar with a sacredness that I apply to music.

There was the video posted by my friend Ken Sheldon from his December presentation of "Frost Heaves" -- a production of comedy, music and stories with a New Hampshire focus. His posting of guitarist Tom Bielecki's playing of "Joy to the World" was indeed a spriitual joy. See it here.

And there was the moment with my children, my daughter Elizabeth living in Connecticut and my son David going to graduate school in New York City.

It looked like we might not see each other for Christmas. I was headed in one direction; they were headed the other direction. But we figured out a way to get together at Elizabeth's on New Year's Day, and it turned out to be a wonderful gathering of family and significant others.

The noise of happy conservation that evening brought a calm of being content that all was right in the world, all was bright.