Tag Archives: suzanne stafford

Message In A Bottle: Lucinda Williams

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I ran across this Lucinda Williams video a few minutes ago. She comes out and blows her opening number because her capo is in the wrong place, and she’s singing in a higher key, and she can’t figure out what exactly is the problem. Her techie has to tap her shoulder and tell her that her capo is in the wrong place.

This has happened to me on a couple of cheek reddening occasions (with the exception of a band mate pointing out the error instead of a techie) and this slip of Lucinda’s made me feel validated. She messes up, blows it off, rocks it out. Yup. That’s how it’s done.

Lucinda Williams is one of my favorite rock and rollers, and I’ve often thought I should try to sell her some songs. If I knew how to go about doing that. Anybody out there know how to go about doing that? I have some swell songs, I promise.

If I were to write a message in a bottle to Lucinda Williams, and throw it in the river, this is what I would say…

“Dear Lucinda Williams,
If this message that I’ve pushed in this bottle and thrown into the Tar River has reached you down in New Orleans or wherever you are, well I might say that I have finally had a change of luck, and perhaps the thoughts in my head were made to be more than just thoughts.

Hi! !!!  How are you doing? I hope you are smiling, and I hope you like this bottle?? I thought it fanciful enough to be endearing and strong enough to withstand the trip downstream . I didn’t really want to give the bottle up, I’ve had it for years, but I thought, what the hell…Lucinda will like it.

So. I really like your songs and the way you sing, ma’am. I’m a singer songwriter as well, and I think I have some songs you could go to town on. Do you ever think of dead people talking to you when you sing? I get Kurt Cobain and Whitney Houston for some reason cheering me on in my head when really getting into the act of singing and playing. You know that spirit you get into, right?

Anyways, Lucinda, I don’t wanna keep you too long. You never heard of me, and I know you got thangs to do. And I don’t know if you ever get songs from other sources. But if you do, and you feel like giving this single mama a shot, I got some songs for that. Like lots of them. And I could use the help.

I hope you have very fine day, and I hope this message in a bottle somehow finds away into your heart. I’ll look to the birds for your reply.

Super,
Suzanne.

So, yeah.  Splash.  Start floatin’, bottle.

Shleep Naked

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It’s 11:28 and I’m tired. All the good writing hours have escaped me and I am lying in bed unclothed, with a cold quilt to keep the summer sweats at bay. I feel like closing my eyes.

My brain is empty of subject, I just keep saying “write” over in my head. Write, write. I’m dead. My brain is dead. Still I continue, hoping to squeeze something from the effort.

Bah! My whole person is a sheep beh-eh-ehgging to slumber. Put me out to pasture, I will wallow in the silks until the sun rises.

There Are No Cartoon Birds To Pull My Blankets

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6

I didn’t get up at six, just in case you were wondering. I got up at half past eight with no shame on my plate. I ate a handful of regret come evening time when everything I had needed to get done during the day had not gotten done. I don’t know how people get up so early. I know that it is probably great, the feeling of rising with the sun. But how do people do it day after day after day after day? Dawn comes and I am still weary from the hours I could not sleep the night before. Before the second it takes me to shut off the alarm clock is over, I am already fast asleep. Pillow on the head, praising the cool sheets on my cheek.

My Daddy got up at the ass crack of dawn for years when I was growing up. By the time I was out of bed to get ready for school, he would have already been up, breakfasted, read a couple of newspapers, and headed out for his first job of the day, the morning talk show for WYRN 1480 AM. I would listen to him on the clock radio in my Mama’s room while getting dressed for school. If we weren’t listening to him on the radio, we were listening to MIX 101.5 play “Lady in Red” like it knew that was the best song ever to get your day going.

I am so much like my Daddy. Why then can I not find it in myself to get up when I tell myself I would like to get up? The time comes around, and sleep changes my mind. I want sleep as long as I can possibly get the sweet swaddling of it.

The thing is, I know that this ability to sleep in until after eight is ending soon. My daughter, Ollie is going to be going to kindergarten in the fall. For the next seventeen years I will be waking with the worms to find myself plucked out of bed too early for my retaliating sleep pattern to kick in. The task of sending my daughters off to the early start of the school bell rings a slow dull moan in my psyche. If feels as if sleep is about to elude me for the rest of my life.

Half of me bemoans the early morning. Half of me wishes for it to knot me up in it’s bright beams and shake me til I’m wide awake and sugary sweet with love for it.  At night I beg the sunrise to slap me.  Morning comes and I curse the light.

There is so much to do, there is never enough time. When will my will wake up and wheel in the sunrise?

Is there a way to set your clock radio to play “Lady In Red” for the rest of your mornings alive?

Official Reading of the Scroll

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I told myself this morning that I would go to bed at eleven tonight. It’s now two minutes past midnight. I told myself two hours ago that I would start writing this blog post, but I didn’t start til now. I told myself last night that I would get up at six this morning, but I got up at eight. I’ve told myself again tonight that I will get up at six in the morning. And I’m going to. It’s six minutes past midnight. This is my anti-procrastination writing blog. I am going to change my life for the better.