Where Do You Get Inspiration For A Song?
People always ask where I get my ideas for songs from. Where do I get my inspiration? Inspiration is always there and can come from the most mundane of experiences. Most of you have probably noticed by now that I’m a solo performer. There is no entourage, no road manager, no other musicians, just me, alone. Now sometimes that is wonderful and sometimes, say when you out number the audience, it can suck. But most of time it is a joy.
One of the perks of traveling alone is that, not outnumbering even the smallest nuclear family, I’ll get invited into people’s homes for dinner or even a place to stay; something that I think wouldn’t happen if I were a seventeen piece horn band. Even women that I’ve never known before have invited me in…not often, but it’s happened. Okay, TWICE, but it’s happened. …And I get invited to parties.
I remember one party in particular, thrown by some flight attendants in Chicago. I love flight attendants. They are clean, punctual people and I like that. I have come to think that that is more and more important, the older I get. So. Of course I go to the party. It turns out that I am the only one at the party not employed by the airlines.
Now as you know, whenever people work together in an insular fashion, such as a factory or night shift, a language unique to the workplace evolves. This is certainly true of the airlines. They have evolved an “airlinese” that they speak and if you aren’t employed by the airlines, you can stand around at one of their parties wondering what in the world these folks are talking about.
If you also happened to be someone with an infantile, toilet mouth, arrested development sense of humor, such as I have, you may find your mind wandering into the gutter when you hear certain of these phrases. For instance when I hear a beautiful flight attendant talking about a “layover,” I start smiling. I know it’s lame. It’s lame, it’s lame, it’s lame, but I can’t help it. I’m grinning. Then when I hear them mention a “turnaround” I am intrigued. It was when they got to “dead heading” that I thought I might be out of my element. Pale faced, I backed away, found a corner and commenced to do some recreational drinking.
I had had, I don’t know, maybe fifty five, maybe sixty beers, and was actually sloshing whenever someone stepped on me, when I realized that nature was calling and I crawled off to find the bathroom.
Now I don’t know what the bathroom looks like in your home, but remember that I am a musician and a professional house guest. As such, I have seen some funky bathrooms in my time; bathrooms beyond your wildest imaginings of funky bathrooms. Bathrooms where there was something growing on the shower curtain that they couldn’t kill. Something growing that was of a blue green hue; a hue that actually became opaque in the warmer, more humid months. A perfect pet for a musician, when you think of it. One could go away as long as they like and still have this little fuzzy fellow there when they got home. But I digress.
Bathrooms where the towels had gone down in the corner wet and had actually EVOLVED into a lower life form. And when you looked into the mirror, in your peripheral vision you could see undulate. Weird. You’d turn your head and stare at them, but would see nothing but moldy towels, so you look away and there they’d go again. Undulating. I fully expected to come back there sometime and find that the towels and the shower curtain had mated. Some sort of moldy miscegenation going on. Thousands of little shower curtains, loofahs or diaphragms wiggling around.
But I digress.
Bathrooms with orange teardrop stains in the sink from a faucet that has been leaking since Genesis Book I; soap stuck to the sink; little curly hairs in the soap. I am talking steep bathroom funkdom here folks. Well, the bathroom in this flight attendant’s condo was a shrine.
Clear plastic shower curtain, --not a water spot on it. Cristal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Mirrors on all the walls and the ceiling so that you could see yourself in a variety of angles while you did it. Designer towels that came from GOD to the wall, accompanied by little signs that said, “Please don’t use the designer towels”. A simulated marble sink on which there sat a brass pedestal. In the brass pedestal, a bar of soap that had NEVER BEEN WET! What went on in this bathroom? Did no one use it? Did they go to a neighbor? “hello, can I borrow a cup of sugar…and your toilet?”
Speaking of which, she had blue shag rug all over the floor and, I guess by way of continuing the design, brought the blue shag rug up around the bowl of the toilet, over the tank of the toilet, over the top of the tank of the toilet, over the seat of the toilet and rrrrrround the rim of the toilet. Blue shag rug all over the toilet. It looked like a muppet toilet. “Sit down, James”
--right, I’m really gonna sit on the Cookie Monster’s face.
And that brings us to another point entirely. See, I don’t think that women, in their feminine gentility, ever consider the way men do it. Now I promise to be tasteful here, but you all should know about this. It would help with the communication gap between men and women; --hands across the water, if you will.
You see, we approach the facility from an upright position. This is one that we maintain throughout the act. (we’re talking Number One here, lest you be confused. Number One). We bend and raise the lid and then, provided we are well bred, we raise the seat, and then we commence.
Now this works with supreme efficiency in my bathroom, BUT when you ladies go to the trouble of upholstering your tank and your toilet, and your lid, and your seat, then the lid and the seat stay up there, TWO maybe THREE seconds. Just until we men are irrevocably involved in what we’re doing and then FWAMP!! This conglomeration comes snapping down at you when you are at your most vulnerable. AAAWWWKKK you shriek as you leap out of the way.
Now who, I ask you, who could be accurate, while they are sprinting across a bathroom?
So while I was using her industrial strength hair dryer to blow dry the carpet and the toilet and the lid and the seat and the mirrors and the chandelier and the shower curtain and the simulated marble sink and the brass pedestal …AND the bar of soap that had finally gotten wet, I got an idea for a love song.
james lee stanley
in Songwriting, Random Thoughts, Touring
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10 Comments
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Reader Comments (10)
James, thank you for the particulary vivid descriptions of bathroom funkdom. Too funny. It reminds me of the time I was dating a guy who shared a funky old house with four other guys. When I used their bathroom for the first (and last) time, the first thing I noticed (besides the general sensation of things “undulating”, as you described) was a gallon-sized jug of of Qwell shampoo in the shower (for those innocents out there, it’s a treatment for crab lice). Red Flag! I immediately started to itch.
L.J.
James - this story is ALMOST as funny to read as to hear you tell it!
Cindi
Oh man, that is too funny!!! Well told sir! Your stage patter must be fabulous. :)
First trime I heard this-many moons ago-I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe. Still do <G> Reading it is great, seeing it live is priceless. Thanks for sharing it here,
Sitting on Cookie Monster's face that is now burned into my brain and will stay there for eternity...and evolve into something that is totally unspeakable...at least here...
Btw carpeting should be left out of the bathroom...bath mat toilet seat cover one of those toilet mats I guess they call it with the front cut out so it wraps around the bottom of the toilet which must have been invented by a man for the very reasons you have mentioned dear James..
Now I love Shag Carpet...there's a very obvious dirty comment there but I will let it slide...anyhow I love shag carpet... i also love bad taste...in many arenas...but when it comes to carpet in the bathroom shag or otherwise...it looks FABULOUS...but all of the mold and other critters that like moist warm places in a place that is so often warm and wet...yes another oppurtunity for filth that I shall pass up...anyhow you just dont put carpeting in the same room as a shower/tub...sink toilet etc...it maybe deliciously tacky but its also counterproductive...so what was the idea for the song?
thank you so much for posting and for enjoying the story. i love being the raconteur as much as i enjoy making the music. i'll do another one next week.
When there is an actual sign in a bathroom stating that the towels are off limits, that's the sign of someone that has probably been inhaling far too much bleach cleaner. Eeeeeasy, lady.
Oh, and someone else has a message for you.......(see below comment).
Me OfFeNdEd!
dear cookie monster, please accept my apologies... i would never sit on your face without the proper invitation.
Hi pals!
Do you know where can I hear about refinance broker mortgage rate calculator .
I'd be very blessed.
Thanks
Mark