I Just Read About That…

  SOUNDTRACK: THE-DREAM-Tiny Desk Concert #886 (August 30, 2019).

I had never heard of The-Dream and couldn’t imagine why the name was hyphenated.  Turns out The-Dream is an R&B singer with a kind of gentle falsetto (not too high, but higher than expected).  The blurb says: “The-Dream delivered his lyrics with that signature high-pitched whisper, just shy of a falsetto..”

He’s also written hits

for the likes of Beyoncé (“Single Ladies”) and Rihanna (“Umbrella”).

and apparently he is a big deal.

R&B hasn’t sounded the same since The-Dream changed the game. Maybe growing up off Bankhead on Atlanta’s west side gifted him with a hip-hop swag native to the soil. Indeed, it’s worth remembering that he preceded the current era of melodic, sing-songy rappers who disregard traditional lyricism for raw, heart-rending delivery.

All three songs here are about getting into the bedroom as one might guess from the title of his album: Ménage à Trois: Sextape Vol. 1, 2, 3.

The first song “Bedroom” (calling all bodies to the bedroom) is soft and steamy.  It’s also got some humor

All ladies read before 11
So you got all day to get your mother-n’ nails done
I know you soak that thing ’round 7
And it’s already 4, go get your mother-n’ hair done
Ooh, you look so sexy
Come and bless me

[I found out later that these lyrics are cleaned up for Tiny Desk].

There’s gentle horns from DeAndre Shaifer and Theljon Allen (trumpet) and Elijah Jamal Balbed (saxophone) and a smooth bass line from Justin Raines.

He is also amusing at the end of the song:

“It’s kinda hard to sing like that with the daylight out,” The-Dream said after finishing the first number in a steamy set of songs more appropriate for the bedroom than the sunlit cubicles of NPR.

“Back In Love” has more simple echoing synths (from Carlos McKinney) and spare drums (from Larone “Skeeter” McMillian) and with some clever rhyming:

I miss that body in the hallway
I used to meet that body in the foyer
If you were right here, we’d have to skip the foreplay

and

I was mad at you, you was mad at me
C’est la vie, arrivederci
Still, all I loved was you

“I Luv Your Girl” is a less of a sexy song and more of a stealing-your-shawtie kind of song.

I hate the adenoidal “ahhhhh.” that apparently indicate sex, but the lyrics are pretty funny nonetheless.  Actually in looking at the actual lyrics I see that he has really made himself more PG-13 than X-Rated on these songs.

And she runnin’ Fingers through her hair, tryin ta call her over there but she like, Na Na Na Na!
She drop it down to the floor, I’m sayin shorty you should go, and she like Na Na Na Na!

Those na na’s are an amusingly safe version of the actual lyrics.  And after listening to the actual song, I found even the original to be kind of funny-while he’s stealing your woman.

As with a lot of R&B I prefer the Tiny Desk version because it’s much less produced.  Of course I still don’t know why there’s a hyphen in his name.

[READ: October 14, 2019] “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

This is a dark story (very Joyce Carol Oates) about the environment and how you can no longer flee to the country to get away from pollution–or worse.

It begins enigmatically with

“This matter of the mask for instance.”

Luce sometimes wears the mask–a half mask, green gauze mask–but never outside of the home.  She wore it any time the wind “smelled funny,” “smelled wrong.”  Especially from the industrial cities to the South.

She removes it if Andrew comes home. When he sees her he claims she is “catastrophizing” (Is that even a word?).

Luce tells Andrew that they should have a dinner party–it has been too long.  Andrew jokes–“better hurry.”  Luce winces at the joke.  Their friends aren’t old, but their few remaining neighbors on Vedders Hill Way have been diagnosed with colorectal cancer and stenosis of the spine and Crohn’s disease and much more.  Other friends have varying other ailments as well.

The way that Luce and Andrew met is briefly discussed–it was very sweet, but sometime Luce wonders if there should have been more.  They met in the winter when Luce slipped on the ice.  But now, the winters are never as cold and

with global warming, there is no longer in this part of North American a guarantee of the protracted subzero temperatures that once killed off virulent life.

When they moved from West Seventy-Eighth street to the Hudson Valley…  the air was cleaner the sky was a brighter and clearer blue–Luce is certain.

And then there was the catastrophe–a fire that wiped out much of their neighborhood.  Although they were spared.  Why only them?  Or were they actually spared?

Luce decides that this party will be the resurrection of the Little Quartet–herself and members of the The Hazelton Chamber Orchestra who used to play together for fun.  They haven’t played together in a long time and Luce thinks this is a good opportunity for them to dust off their instruments.

She decides it will be Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden”– a very challenging piece.

Luce keeps trying to undersell the performance to herself–we’re amateurs, lets face it.–but she is excited to play in front of her friends–something much harder than playing in front of an audience.

The party starts and people begin small talk and more (I enjoyed: “What exactly is ‘vaping?”‘ Andrew asks with a faint sneer).  Andrew also entertains by channeling the voice of Puritan minister Jonathan Edwards ( who wrote the titular sermon).

And soon the music starts.

The performance is told via Luce’s state of mind as she observes everything that happens throughout the performance.   The close narration makes the reader as tense as Luce is through the entire piece.  Both in the way the quartet interacts with each other and some personal issues that she is certain are obvious to everyone present.