Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Spinning, Spinning, Spinning Underneath the Christmas Tree

Dinah, the character who sings "Arizona Ash", also gets to sing "Spinning, Spinning, Spinning Underneath the Christmas Tree" - one of the Christmas songs I wrote for the play Roots in Austin.

It's a sweet and simple tune about a pleasant Austin custom. Several generations of Austinites have gone to Zilker Park in the days before Christmas to spin themselves dizzy under a Christmas tree made from many multi-colored lights suspended from a Moon Tower. People like Dinah were once spun in circles by their parents - now they spin their own children.







Spinning, Spinning, Spinning Underneath the Christmas Tree

Arizona Ash

The song "Arizona Ash" was written soon after we moved to a house with 3 of these aging trees in the front yard.

For Roots In Austin, this is one of the songs I've assigned to a mellow character named Dinah, a woman who grew up in Austin, left for a few years but once
she realized she couldn't live anywhere else it was time to return. She was a kid when these trees first became popular and she hates to see them go. Unlike some of the other characters in the play, Dinah is at peace with living in Austin - it looks beautiful and normal and right to her. Deep snow and a world of leafless trees are what freak her out!




Arizona Ash


Thursday, July 24, 2008

A Transplantable Rose

"A Transplantable Rose" isn't the first song that I wrote but as a tale of an Illinois-to-Texas gardener it seemed suitable as a name for my main blog, slightly changed to The Transplantable Rose.

The character who sings this song is may have come from Illinois, but she's not me and a job was not the reason for the move. In the play, Caroline comes to Austin hoping for a new and different life and a place where she can forget a lost love. (I always liked that name 'Caroline'. It was an alternate choice for a baby name once upon a time and it's fun to be able to use it. )