Song of the week, 12 January 2003:

Building Bridges
(vocal Marg)
mp3 available by email request

Oops. Funny how these things work out. This tune was recorded a while ago, and has existed as one of my 'safeties' since then: not generally sent around, and held ready for one of those weeks in which I got so busy or sick that I couldn't finish on time. Really, it isn't meant to be part of a suite of 'Verbing Nouns' songs with last week's offering. Honest.

In some ways, 'Building Bridges' got this site going. Marg and I put together a version without intro or proper mix for R.A. Rosenberg's art-in-progress party, and the whole experience inspired me to try this nutty experiment of a song posted every week.

The song was, in turn, partly brought on by a funny story. When we lived in Buffalo, Marg and I observed a peculiar thing. When the locals there are pissed about a political issue, protesting or writing letters doesn't seem to be their primary response. Instead, they put a sign in their yard. Sometimes this can get rather comical, as it turns into an arms race as different factions rush to get their voices, um, seen. Such was the case with the Peace Bridge debate, a stupid episode in Buffalo politics of truly representative proportions. I can't really explain the whole thing here (not enough space); suffice it to say that more bridge capacity to Canada is needed, and there is some *ahem* polite disagreement on how to fix the problem.

Anyway, after seeing hundreds of signs for 'Twin Span Now!' or 'Signature Span or Death!' or whatever for months, it was refreshing to see, in a small Elmwood Avenue shop, an alternative crackpot viewpoint. There was a cheaply printed sign calling out for a 'PONTOON BRIDGE NOW!' About the same time, I started to notice the 'Just Build the Damn Bridge' bumper stickers, which it turns out, were being distributed by the father of a friend of ours. The sign and the stickers were enough to lodge the debate in my unconscious, where it burbled silently until helping to start this tune. Which then took off and did things on its own, of course.

Building bridges
(c) 2002 Mark Frey

building bridges isn't as easy as it used to be
everybody wants to have their say
the more we learn
the tougher it gets to keep it all straight
until common sense starts to get in the way

do we do it for money?
maybe for love?
are we making our plans at the stern insistence
of a distant voice that calls from above?

or are we building bridges, just building bridges

shapes and colors
pretty postcards hang on workshop walls
funny bits of cheerfully aging reality
some will outlast
the original vision, lost to rubble
in the face of time, final force of equality

did we do it for ego?
maybe for power?
and will it matter
once wind and rain have laid low every tower?

that we were building bridges, building bridges

[Make these connections because we do-reaching out the way we can]
[going to have to see it through-without a goal or perfect plan]

Masterpiece or folly
who can say before the last bolt's driven
the last stone down, the last line strung in the sky
real or metaphor
spanning space between tiny lives
a kind of answer to wondering why

Building bridges, building bridges.