Six Eight Debate

I hate people who mosey,

truth be told.

And truth be told,

you are no friend of mine if you stroll, ramble, or meander.

God help you if you saunter,

cause if you're a saunterer,

you are dead to me.

I've always been infuriated by slow moving people. I don't mean the disabled or the infirm, just the sunday drivers on the two-lane highway of life. And that's not to say I haven't stopped and smelled my fair share of roses, but there are rest stops for that sort of thing.

My wife's a born dawdler. Sometimes I'll be half way across the parking lot before she has even gathered her purse from the checkout counter. The seventeen year old is a world class, gold medal winning, with an honorary doctorate dawdler. He can turn a simple combination of movements (like putting on his shoes and walking out the door) into a fifteen minute frustration session where he insists that he's been ready to go for "like hours."

"Come on, we're going!" My wife will yell.

"I'm ready!" he'll yell back.

"You don't even have you shoes on!" she'll scream

"It just takes a second to put them on." he'll scream back from the easy chair he's been texting in.

"We're out the door right now!" She'll scream loudly.

"I just have to finish this!" He'll exasperate.

"Let's go!" She screams louder

"I'm coming!" He'll exasperate again.

etc.

I've seen this take fifteen minutes,

I shit you not.

Calvin's a meanderer. But, fair being fair, what four year-old doesn't suffer from shiny object syndrome? He is a bit of a clothes horse, which worries me, and once he gets an idea in his head there's no forward movement until he either wins or I pull the spanking card, but he's lightening fast otherwise.

So I guess to sum up, I like to move quickly.

Too fast, really.

I've found that I don't work well around people who mosey. I get frustrated, they get frustrated. I pull the spank card. They tell me the spank card is only legal in Texas. I can't go to Texas. Those people virtually invented moseying.

And it affects me in my artistic abilities as well. I have to constantly remind myself to slow a song down, to stop playing ahead of the beat. I could get through a Leonard Cohen ballad like I was Joey Ramone.

Anyway, a few years ago I was watching the Golf Channel (Yes this was before I was a full time father.) and the show had session on putting.

Coach Putterer pulled out a metronome.

He said "In order for you to have an even, smooth stroke, you must first be in tune with your internal tempo."

He said "Buy yourself a metronome and go for a walk. They are for sale at the website below. (I added that part) Try to match the metronome's tempo with the tempo of your natural walk. Once you've found your natural rhythm, use the beats to measure your stroke. It is in this way you will achieve an even swing."

Seeing as how I had both a metronome handy, and an uneven swing, I decided to give it a try.

One two three four, one two three four.

But that was too slow, too uncomfortable, so I doubled it.

Oneandtwoandthreeandfourand.

Better, but not right. So I tripled it.

One and a two and a three and a four and a.

Much better, but insanely fast. I looked like a speed walker who desperately needs to pee.

So rather than fighting my way down the street in a boring 4/4, I decided to try a little 6/8.

And there it was. My internal rhythm. And I'm not talking about "Waltzing Matilda" either. My internal rhythm was more like the tympani of a Wagnerian thunderstorm.

Boom bah bah BOOM bah bah.

You can almost see the rumble under Brunhilde's leather corset.

And Coacher Putterer was right. Lift the club on one, breathe on two, reach my back swing on three, smash the ball on four, and follow through on five and six. Best I ever played.

And it didn't stop there. I discovered that for every song I've written in 4/4, there are like five in 6 /8. Half of my first album is in 6/8 (or some variation).

It's as if my internal rhythm is as impatient to get to the end of the bar as I am to get to the end of the grocery aisle. Which is to say, two steps faster.

But as my dad is always telling me.

"Slow it down son"

So the next song I'd like to demo for you has two versions. The first is the juiced up version in 6/8. Juiced up meaning there is more on the track than guitar and vocals. The second version is just me and an electric guitar in 4/4.

I like both. Not as recordings (I can't stand anything I've recorded), but as synonyms. Different words with the same meaning.

The 6/8 version feels immediate, impassioned. But there's a slow droning groove to the 4/4 that's just melancholy enough to warrant a second listen.

They both feel too slow to me.

Listen and enjoy . . .

or don't and mosey out of the way.



www.myspace.com/joshmacrae