"Acceptance Is An Art"
Funny how something you said in your 20's could come to full realization in your late 50's.
I was performing in the weekly variety showcase at an Army camp in South Korea, and this phrase was part of an improvised jam we did one night. It was mostly random noise with me hollering out stuff I had written down while riding the bus to work, culminating in a big solid A chord blow out. On Dec 21, 2016, while out for a 5 mile run, the phrase popped in my head and I started dictating verses into my phone, and by the time I was back home I had a nearly completed set of lyrics for a new song called "Acceptance". The date was what would have been Frank Zappa's 76th birthday, and so the feel of the song is Zappa inspired, since I want to have a funky groove along with a killer guitar solo, and in fact includes a quote from Frank, "Knowledge is not wisdom". We worked on it in the studio last week and it somehow morphed into a punk song, which is a lot of fun and sounds fantastic, but not my original intention. We're headed back to the studio Aug 13th to give it another shot. We had discussed a cool idea for the ending: having 3 guitar players alternating solos ala "The End" by The Beatles. I also have an idea for an intro that musically conveys an emotional arc of curiosity, excitement, confusion, frustration, anger, understanding, and finally...acceptance. The song is intended to be the second to last cut on the new album. Of course that is only fitting since the album itself conveys the same emotional arc. Here is an excerpt:
The curtain's coming down and I'm running late
I wish I had more time to set you straight
Acceptance is an art on a silver plate
And the hand that feeds is the hand of fate
Stay tuned...
