This song was written for and inspired by my wife, Mindy Schacter-Aptheker. It was driven from pen to paper because of the constant, every day complaining of the fact that I can’t dance. From the start, I referred quickly to Gram Parson’s version of the song, “I Can’t Dance”, by Tom T. hall.
There’s a particular phrase at the beginning, where he admittedly accepts: “ I guess my feet don’t match…”.
That’s where the song was born. I was thinkin’, he would also say something like,
‘”I’ve got two left feet.”’ So, I started with that. A little bit further along in to the marriage, old musicals such as “Pork & Bess” and, especially, “An American In Paris”, started to become treasures from which I felt a gravitational pull towards. Jazz Standards and early American show tunes were beginning to infiltrate my subconscince palate, if you will.
Transforming from playing the role of the “poor and lonely Folksinger”,
I was incorporating genres of music in to my life that would have been considered hammy or unbecoming when I was a young and ignorant lad.
After years of unsuccessfully auditioning and going through countless Jazz Bassists and keyboardists,
we decided to end our search. What a waste of time, sweat and gas money. As they say, sometimes one must adjust to the position of, “lower expectations”!
Then, as if a rift in the universe opened up, a soft spoken man called us from a long distance telephone number. Mindy, with an uninspired tone, answered the phone.
“Hello, my name is Michael. I was reading your song list on that ad you’d posted. I just have to tell you that
your repertoire is MY repertoire.”
Mindy let down her guard and began to talk with the man. With every passing sentence, the conversation seemed to get excitedly interesting.
So, here we are now. Our third time meeting. This time we drove down to his place. The clubhouse was finally available. A far drive for us. Lots of gas…on little cash, ya’ know? We begin with some Gershwin tunes…
Wait a minute. This is not MY SHOW. I know maybe 25% of what you’re gonna’ play…
And I’m “The Bass Player”. Wow, I’m in over my head!
The record button is pressed. And so, I press on. You know what? This FEELS right. This sounds like it will work!
“The Zoom HD 8rack is here. Michael, can you help me out with something later on?”
“Oh, no…” my wife says with a sigh. “He wants you to help him with his song. This isn’t the right time for…
“No, no, no,. Just a little bit of piano. Do you have an accordion sound on there? I know you have something that will work. Not Right now. Just a little later on. It’ll be perfect. This song is MEANT to have an accordion on the foreground. That’s what it’s written for!
Think of a French café; someone… a street player nearby with a, what’s it called, Concertina? Oh, come on! It’s real easy compared to that stuff you can do. Here’s the chords. I know, it says it’s in D. That’s ‘cuz I wrote it for mindy to do it. She does it better. But listen to that, the vocals aren’t that bad. Just give it a go. You’ll get it…”