The time has come, the Walrus said, or was it the Wizard (?), to step out from behind the curtain and extend the song by a few more verses. Every time I write a song I think: ‘wouldn’t it be a lovely thing to tell this in a different form: a longer form. One where I could elaborate and delve?’ It is a story I think a lot of you will identify with if not only to round out some of my narrative in songs you have listened to that I have written in the past--- maybe fill in some old blanks in new ways.
I hope to hear from you after you read or listen to it, because the arc of communication is so much more satisfying when there is feedback.
And I thank you for the rendering of trees, they are all, every one of them so beautiful and each different and they remind me how different every minute is, every second: how if you had taken the snap a nana-second later, it would have been a different image.
The winner in this particular competition is Annie: I think it’s a fantastic and graceful interpretation of the cover of my book: Boys in the Trees. It’s not something to aspire to every time as the natural “tree” has enough poetry in it’s own beauty to qualify as a winner. However this one struck me because of the artist’s imagination adding something so personal as to be intriguing to me this time around. It really is something. They all are. The ones I take in the moment I take them have such a deep wonder and specialness to me. I just started to design and make my own jewelry that is base on trees and their leaves. I’ve been so inspired by what I thought was so silly when I was a young girl: my mother and her walking around the yard hugging trees all the time. She was indeed a hippy of her time. Maybe the original tree hugger. In my book you’ll find out a lot about my mother and the various trees she did not hug, but who and what, instead she did. That was cryptic. Sorry. The book is so honest it’s a little scary to be so right ‘there’ right ‘on’, not covered by the fiction that can exist in a song. This book is based on diaries I kept from the time I was nine. It is based and detailed in fact.
The audio book is something that came as a surprise to me. I didn’t expect to be able to read it aloud due to my life long problem with stuttering. I found I could do it as long as no one was in the room with me, thus I engineered the recording of it. When I was finished, I found that stuttering was not a problem, in the way it isn’t when you can’t hear yourself or when, in my case, I’m putting on an accent, or (obviously) singing. What was a problem, was the sounds my stomach was making while I was reading in my room, all alone late at night so there wouldn’t be so many planes flying above and only a few very lovely night birds were there to give just enough ambience to show that it’s a record from home. But what makes it most intriguing is that after I finished the reading, I thought it would be fun to score it. The way you’d score a movie, lightly, but using all my relevant songs, or various and different versions of them.
See if you can identify the songs used. All together there are 230 some odd cues. Many of them based on the same songs (especially: “Boys in the Trees,” “Orpheus” and a song called “Three Days” from the Anticipation album. It was so much fun to score it. Teese Gohl, my friend and great pianist and orchestrator was the one who put all the cues together and it may be one of the first times ever a book was scored by the author who also read it. I have never really listened to it back. Not the whole thing at least. You know how it is when you look in the mirror and see your face and are uncomfortable with seeing it and turn away. That’s how I used to feel about hearing my records. I got used to it after a while. But this “reading voice” of mine, as natural as I think it does sound, freaked me out at first. The music whenever it comes in, gives a good bed for the words, and now after finishing it, in retrospect, I wish I’d included more music.
At any rate, let this serve as a special introduction to the book to those of you on CarlySimon.com who have been so loyal to me for so long.
Special thanks to Meghan La Roque who has spent hundreds of hours putting it up in time for the release of the book (Nov. 24th) and also to Jodie Wright who first initiated the site in the early 00’s. My entire catalogue will be available in a few days, as well as my book, my audio book and my companion CD, Songs from the Trees.
Thanks also to Mr. William Faure who has helped to promulgate my songs, messages and photographs.
Much love to you and Happy Thanksgiving.
I can’t thank you enough!!!