Groundhog Day Is Over

"Groundhog Sunday Stroll" (click to listen) is a really fun tune. (Also, by the way, an award winner in one of those song competitions.) And a true story, as the author was able to decipher it. This one started from words. Or you could say it started from a transplanted Arizona woman sitting on a Central Park bench, wondering about things. One of the aspects I believe contributes most to my work as a composer, is the ability and desire to sit quietly and contemplate. Even on Groundhog Day, even in New York City.

So the lyrics arrived first, actually as a much less friendly rant than the end product of the song. Thank goodness for the willingness to edit! It was all written that afternoon, in and after the time in the park. The rambling quality of the poetry, and the realization that it was all pretty humorous and deserving of a wry smile at my own het-uppedness, generated the ambling somewhat sardonic nature of the harmonic action.

The melody and harmony first came from the words, and in complete interdependence with each other. And as the sections and the form became evident, the poetry/lyrics were transformed and edited, to create clearer idea development and further strengthen the form. I often work this way, letting the musical form and the content manipulate each other into pleasing coherence.

As the harmony goes, I consider the quirky little perambulations of most of the song quite nicely set off by the rather more controlled and predictable melodic and harmonic motion of the hook:

"A well-defined and ritual display

Of a well-defined and ritual life

Groundhog Sunday Stroll"

Is the relationship of the words and the slightly rigid aspect of the music evident? The composer wants to know.