My Secret Career 29: Sado Hawkins Dance

I wrote many songs underground on New York City public transit.

Someone caught my eye at a dive bar listening to a loud band. I never spoke to her but I can still see her in my mind’s eye. I couldn’t then and can’t now put into words exactly why she disturbed me so much.

But that night on the subway back to Brooklyn, some words did come to me. I repeated them like a mantra and by the time I got home I was able to write them down. Back before cell phones, recall of new ideas was challenging to someone like me who hates carrying a bag. I was forever buying tiny notebooks that would fit into a pocket to avoid a satchel.

The words sat in my notebook like one rotten egg baked into a scrumptious-looking cake.

Months went by. A riff snuck up on me and rattled around. Something about it rang an awful bell and I dug up the memory of that person.

I wish I could say I captured her perfectly. I wish I could say my words captured an external image with force. Instead, when I revisited those words, hastily remembered on a late night subway car, all I captured was me.

Here is Sado Hawkins Dance from Onion’s 1995 “Beauty Is Ordinary”.