Happy Little Tunes

"There's a girl here with such a tight sweater, she looks like the front end of a Cadillac," the bass player said into the microphone. He was looking straight at Melody.

Even before the bass player's remark, Melody had suspected that she was in the wrong place. This was a jazz combo. Jazz just did not work for Melody. Rather than convey the full range of emotions, jazz seemed to reduce all songs to a bland porridge of impassionate, mellow sounds. But she had driven all the way over here, so she might as well at least talk to whoever headed up the combo.

That turned out to be the sax player. Melody caught him as the break started and asked him if the combo could play other kinds of music besides jazz.

"This isn't jazz," the sax player said.

"Then what is it?" Melody asked.

"We just play what sounds good to us. Why do you ask?"

Melody told him that she was a singer and guitar player. She was slated to play at a function sponsored by the Mental Health Center and needed more musicians to back her up. She, and most of the people who would be listening, she told him, had bipolar disorder.

"We'd love to come to your function," the sax player said, "and play some happy little tunes."

"But we don't play 'happy little tunes'," Melody said.

We're not into "little" happiness. When we're happy, we're elated, euphoric, in love with the whole world. We hit the ceiling of creativity. We take on battles even the angels would run from.

And we're not into "little" sadness either. We don't just feel somewhat discouraged. We fall, totally out of control, into the deepest sloughs of despond.

So, we don't want "little" tunes. We want grand, even grandiose, music. And don't give us whiny music either. Give us music that rants and screams against evil.

Don't give us music that's "happy". Give us music that seduces our euphoria and traps it inside a perpetual bass rhythm and a treble voice that screams to the world, "This is what we love! This is our joy!"

The sax player had stopped listening long ago. As soon as Melody was finished talking, he walked away.