Two Shades of Blue

Bay Station - 10:00 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. (Maybe $6.50? I haven't bothered counting.)

In previous posts, I've mentioned that certain songs seem to suit certain days. For reasons that aren't immediately apparent, random individuals will respond to one song over others--and it won't be the top song of the day before. I usually look for the reason behind the popularity, but I often end up wondering if I'm simply making it all up: if I'm just looking for meaning in this little movie I'm creating for my life, and I'm picking the best song for the soundtrack.

Anyway, today's song-of-the-day was "Two Shades of Blue". It's a new song, written about a month ago. I've played it in the subways before and at several open mics. It was written while en route to the subway. (I hadn't noticed before but now it seems important.)

It starts out like this. (Oh, and a little "ha ha" aside here: I've learned that if I decide to publish my blog as a book, I must excise all lyrics written by other songwriters, because it would be too expensive to get the rights to them. But I can publish my own! So here goes.)

Why do we say that we're blue when we're down
When high up above all that blue shines around
That's just a riddle so old that it's new
Love paints a picture in two shades of blue

You get the idea: the thing that gives us joy also brings us sorrow, and vice-versa. We get them all mixed up, even as we obsess about them, and meanwhile we're right in the middle of both, all the time. (Don't worry, there won't be a quiz.)

No matter how Two Shades Of Blue stacks up as a song, it does reflect pretty accurately how I feel about singing in the subways, and the fact that I've stayed so long, and that (so far) I still plan to re-audition on Saturday morning. Here's the last verse:

The beauty of life is you don't have to choose
To live is to love and to love is to lose
So what's a poor colour-blind poet to do?
We're caught and we know it, in two shades of blue...

I'm always right on the fence. Is it worth it, or not? I don't know. I do notice that when a friend asked me today whether I'd do it if no money were changing hands, I said no without hesitation. Money validates. And singing in the subway prevents me from spending time on activities that make more and more reliable money, even as it keeps me connected to other people (some of them), and to the world I live in and to my spirit, which in turn energizes me to do what I'm best at. Again, mixed blessings.

So, the auditions. 11:30 on Saturday morning, at the Canadian National Exhibition, behind the Food Building.

Today, by chance, along came the Special Constable from the TTC who'd encouraged me at the auditions last year. He asked me how the year had gone for me. (I said it had been great but that donations were unsteady; he blamed gas prices.) He wished me luck and will see me on Saturday. (It's supposed to rain.)

The auditions, of course, are unlike singing in the subways. There's an audience there. They clap. As my friend said at lunch today, maybe they should videotape people singing alone in an empty corridor for an hour, while people file by ignoring them.