‘Homer & Langley’

He said he'd saved a whole box of records from destruction. At that moment I couldn't care less. You go along with the faculties you have almost as if you are normally equipped. And then something like this happens and you realize what a defective you are.

Homer, Langley said, I have a question. Until we began playing records for the dancers, I never really paid much attention to popular songs. But they're powerful little things. They stick in the mind. So what makes a song a song? If you put words to one of your etudes or preludes or any of those other pieces you like to play, it still wouldn't be a song, would it? Homer, you listening?

A song is usually a very simple tune, I said.

Like a hymn?

Yes.

Like "God Bless America"?

Like that, I said. It has to be simple so that anyone can sing it.

So that's why? Homer? So that's why?

Also it has a fixed rhythm that doesn't change from beginning to end.

You're right! Langley said. I never realized that.

Classical pieces have multiple rhythms.

There is art to the lyrics too, Langley said. The lyrics are almost more interesting than the music. They boil down human emotions to their essence. And they touch on profound things.

Like what?

Well take that song where he says sometimes he's happy sometimes he's blue.

"… my disposition depends on you."