jokes bombed, empires fell
in between i loved you well
well enough for fifty years
well enough through laughs and tears
whether or not the gag was swell
day one, i knew
it was always me and you
you enough for a million years
you enough to take my fears
from that day my search was through
marry me in times good our rough
marry me for the wedding stuff
wherever you are it is enough
this day and every year
we celebrate that we are here
here enough for streets to rise
here enough to make cracks wise
whatever we do, we do it queer
marry me despite the politics
call ourselves mr, mrs, or mx
whoever we are forever sidekicks
jokes bombed, empires fell
in between i loved you well
well enough to take this chance
well enough to dance this dance
well enough for the stars above
tonite we’ll light them up my love
wherever you are it is enough
wherever you are it is enough
today’s audio is a demo of a song i wrote last month for some friends who were getting married. it started out as a throwaway tune for my weekly songwriting group. the prompt was “JOKES BOMBED”, and i was rushing to get the song done before i had to head out for the afternoon wedding rehearsal.
i suppose it was inevitable that my mind was more focused on getting out the door on time and showing up for my friends, than on writing a song. for me, this has been a pretty consistent recipe for a great song. years ago, in the spring of my 24th year, i was anxiously waiting for a phone call when i noodled forth what has turned out to be a great and lasting song.
anyway, one thing led to another and this song turned into a celebration of my friends’ wedding.
it’s written from their perspective toward each other. i feel compelled to mention this because i myself have no desire to get married and remain suspicious of the form, but i can clearly tap into the joy of others. i also love a good ritual, and these friends put together a pretty dreamy, fundamentally queer experience for their community.
if you want to know more about my writing process in detail, i suggest checking out last episode where i break down the writing of a song i made about wanting the people in your car to shut up.
hey yall - just popping in here early to take our quick break and to say thank you so much for reading. if you’re enjoying this, please tell a friend and please consider subscribing.
i’ve got just a few shows this fall, but productions of “miss you like hell” are happening all over the country. you can check it all out on my website, erinmckeown.com. thank you!
this week serena williams is playing in what is widely expected to be her last tournament. do i need to tell you who serena williams is? of course not. but i do want to tell you, in case you didnt know, i am an avid tennis player. i started when i was probably 7 or 8 and continue to play multiple times a week, in leagues and with friends.
as you probably know by now, i am sporty. as a kid, i swam on a team, was on a travel gymnastics squad, and played rec league tennis. once i got to high school, i added field hockey. now, i am a runner and a softball player, too. i’ve been doing regular yoga for the last 20 years. one of my pando blessings has been to practice yoga twice weekly with my dearest cousin, online through her awesome studio in pittsburgh. and of course, i still play tennis.
i’m not the kind of tennis player who has multiple rackets or even special shoes. i prefer an old pair of trail running shoes with the rubber grips worn down. this summer i bought my first ever case of balls. this is all to say that while i am an enthusiast, i like to keep the game and my love of it simple. no crazy special gear, no details to agonize over. i like to win, but i often don’t. i have taken occasional lessons (once trading guitar lessons for tennis lessons with a student’s dad) and sometimes discuss technique or strategy. i rarely watch tennis on TV. mostly i just play and have a good time. tennis has been a consistent and true companion for me, a release, and a joy.
musicians who love tennis are not rare. my dear friend jose ayerve of SPOUSE, my favorite rock band, is a tremendous player. last summer as we were rehearsing for our fall tour together, we played a few matches after rehearsals. jose crushed me, but one time i made him beat me with a 7-6 second set. we both loved it.
while we were making “miss you like hell” in california, the show’s choreographer danny mefford and i played every morning before rehearsal. it was a transformative experience to play that much with someone as good as danny. my love for him and tennis only deepened. even when we were working together on my next musical, terrarium behaviour, which he directed, we still mostly just talked tennis.
after a childhood of knowing seles, graf, agassi, capriati, sampras, chang, i don’t pay much attention to pro players anymore. i know nadal is wonderful, but i don’t watch. i know djokovic is a tool, but i also don’t know his tennis. i think naomi osaka is rad, but i couldn’t tell you the first thing about her game and why she is so promising.
the one pro player i have followed closely and loved deeply, is serena. i have done my best to watch all her major matches for the last decade or so. i lap up any profile of her. especially this fantastic one by cultural scholar and author claudia rankine.
now, as i consider serena’s final matches, i remember where i was when i watched some of her greatest wins and defeats. and i find myself welling up with tears at the idea of not getting to experience her continued greatness in new and different matches. unsurprisingly, i have found myself reflecting on what i have learned from my fandom of her, primarily as a person not as a tennis player.
serena forces me to confront my own racism
i was raised in a small southern town. though my schools were integrated, and my time in them - the 1980’s to mid 90’s - is generally considered the peak of integrated education, i still grew up in racist world. as a young tennis player in this environment, even on public courts, in public rec programs, and at public school competitions, i still did not encounter players of color. serena played her first pro match in october of 1995, the fall of my senior year in high school. i had a lot of tennis and tennis culture inside me by the time i saw her play for the first time.
it is heavy to admit, but watching serena and her sister venus play, i had racist judgements about how they looked and acted, even about how they played their tennis. like many people, it took years of their success and the guiding commentary and criticism of the larger world for me to confront my judgements and begin to untangle them. in some ways, my love of tennis was the main entry point for me to get at my own racism, more so than politics or justice work. it was the first and most familiar place i felt those insidious beliefs emerge. i know i am a better person, better tennis player, and better citizen from that process. the burden that representation has placed on serena and other players of color has been immense. i try to never forget that she has played and won so much with all that projected on her.
watching serena teaches me to love my strong, thick body
as everyone knows, i am small. and tennis is a game that favors the leverage of long limbs to generate power. to make up for this, my tennis has never been about scorching winners or a big serve. my game has always been about quickness and consistency. i pride myself in being able to run down almost anything and stay in a rally until you make a mistake. when i get bored, i try a winner or go to net for a change of pace. sometimes this works of course, but it isn’t the foundation of my game. if i had better patience, i’d probably win more points and more matches.
like everyone else, i am insecure about my body. our visual media prizes bodies that are long and lean. clothing sizes favor these proportions too. but my genetics will never allow me to be anything other than a tiny italian peasant lady with dinky irish shoulders. i was built for sports like gymnastics, not tennis. my enormous muscular quads have always made me self-conscious, even as they allow me to be quick, to be an excellent hill climber, and a ferocious cyclist. as a kid, i loved speed skaters bonnie blair and dan jansen because of their enormous quads. they made me feel better about mine.
but it wasn’t until serena came on the scene, playing tennis, a sport i loved, that i began to appreciate my own strong, thick body. she is 5’9”, shorter than her taller, lankier sister, and on the shorter side of successful tennis players. and yet, she is serena, the greatest. i love when she does fashion shoots and doesn’t try to hide her muscles. i love when her on court attire emphasizes the strength and power of her lower half.
in that spirit, here is a picture of my awesome quads helping me stand on a roof and build for habitat for humanity.
as she retires, serena gives me courage to evolve towards something different
being a pro athlete, like being a pro musician, is an all encompassing choice, requiring a dedication and commitment that extends beyond traditional work boundaries. to be a successful artist you really have to live your work 24-7. i suspect it’s the same for athletes. much like serena, i too started around 1995. so that gives us both a lot of years of service time. a lot of years of missing seasons at home, trying to maintain friendships and intimate partnerships from afar, putting aside hobbies and never having time and space to make family or care for dependents. i got my first house plants only about 5 years ago. the choice to get carl was a big one.
one of the things i appreciated most about serena’s announcement of her impending retirement, was her emphasis on moving toward something new, evolving forward. there is much more to life than tennis, and serena is going toward expanding her family and building her business. she is moving forward towards other things that fill her and inspire her. even if she could stay in peak physical form forever, i doubt she would make a different decision.
i can really appreciate this, and it gives me such courage. at this point my life, as i have written about before, for various reasons, it’s no longer pleasurable or financially sustainable to be a touring artist. there just isn’t a there there anymore. i wish there were. i wish i played to thousands of people, or even hundreds, then i might be able to keep going. but that’s just not the truth of it. i have grief about this, of course. this fall is the first fall in 25 years i am not going on tour. even in the pando, i spent the fall of 2020 writing and recording a record on the other side of the country.
but thinking about serena, and the retirement speech of one of my other favorite athletes, dustin pedroia, i take comfort and inspiration in the peace they exude in the midst of what i am sure is a really complex emotional time.
i suppose this is as good a time as any to bury the lede and let you know some future plans. for the academic year of 2022-23, i’ll be a fellow at the university of chicago’s gray center for inquiry. i’ll be working on an experiment with collaborators leslie buxbaum danzig and david levin. we’re going to look at the transition between speech and song and the moments when text becomes musical in the frame of stage musicals and opera. i have no idea what will come of this, but i know i am fascinated by the subject, my collaborators are amazing scholars and artists, and in the spring we will teach a class about our project.
after this appointment, i’ll be looking for similar projects and places to work. that and this podcast essay thingy is my future right now. i have lots of new music i am writing, some of which i might share. in fact, i have been mulling over the idea of sharing what i make to audiences in a new way: one person at a time. something about that feels right for what i am making currently. stay tuned.
meantime, i will be cheering on serena - not so much for what does or does not happen on the court, though i hope she defies odds and has a deep run into the us open bracket, but in whatever she chooses to do next. thank you serena! you are truly the greatest!
x erin
ps - here is some #carlcontent for you. i dared to have a cup of tea before i took him for his morning walk.
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
since we are talking tennis today, why not spend a little time contemplating the one part of tennis you have complete control over: your serve, specifically your toss.
i hope to someday travel overseas again and see the clown egg register for myself.
the story of the murder of gabby petito is awful and hard to stomach, yet i was moved by this recounting of it. content warning!
one of my favorite drag queens on one of my favorite podcasts.
foxes have been with us humans for a long time. you know me. any fox content is good content.
some real good writing by lulu miller.
one of my favorite newsletters is by cultural critic and all-around badass roxane gay. every few weeks she sends a roundup of what she’s reading on the interwebs. i suggest you subscribe. meantime here’s a few treats i picked up from her: a black-owned outdoor gear company, a profile of marcus mumford, and a profile of mindy kaling.
UPCOMING SHOWS
Sep 10 - Ashburnham MA - RESCHEDULE!!
Scenic Songs: A Hiking Concert
TICKETS
Oct 30 - Cambridge MA
Atwood’s
TICKETS
***
Nov 10 - 19 - Wilkes-Barre PA
Miss You Like Hell at King’s College
MORE INFO
Nov 17 - 21 - Richmond VA
Miss You Like Hell at University of Richmond
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LOOKING AHEAD TO 2023
Jan 19 - Feb 19 - San Jose CA
Miss You Like Hell at City Lights
MORE INFO
Oct 14 - Nov 11 - Seattle WA
Miss You Like Hell at Strawberry Theatre
MORE INFO
If you have further questions or concerns about COVID protocols, please contact the venues directly.
Reminder, Erin does not appear in productions of Miss You Like Hell
G.O.A.T. in all things