My Piano Set; “Love Potion No. 9;” COGNOSCENTI Potion No. 44.
Here’s the 6th installment of Les Obsessions, my rip-off of the New Yorker’s weekly Take Three column where one of their staff writers summarizes three things currently preoccupying their brain.
Here’s my brain this week:
1) Playing my piano set.
You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me (1962) Smokey Robinson & the Miracles Stoned at the Nail Salon (2021) Lorde Carry Go Bring Come (1963) Justin Hinds & the Dominoes Police & Thieves (1976) Junior Murvin
And for the encore:
Picture This (1978) Blondie
I can’t play the piano, but I can play these songs on piano. Ever since 2021, I’ve set out to learn a batch of songs over the course of the year, one per month. That’s how I approached the assignment in 2021 and 2022; here’s a 10,000-word essay I wrote called “Absolute Beginner Blues” about the 2021 set.
Unfortunately, my ability to play each song evaporates as soon as I start learning the next one. This year, I realized it was time to change my approach: quality over quantity, as they say.
So, I’ve I made sure to have each song fully imprinted before moving on. As 2023 comes to a close, I’ve got the four songs I listed above well in hand. The Blondie encore is a personal favorite from my 2022 set that I knew I’d be able to re-learn quickly. I added it to this current set as a cool-down after rollicking through Police & Thieves.
Police & Thieves , which I originally knew because of the marvelous Clash cover version (1977), is the apotheosis of the set for me (I get lovingly lost in the reggae rock punctuation). I learned Police & Thieves from the sheet music to Junior Murvin’s original version, but I’ve combined it with the Clash’s arrangement and come up with a version that’s both melancholy and exuberant.
There’s an excellent jazz vocal version of Police & Thieves by Jamaican-London soul singer Zara McFarlane from her 2013 album If You Knew Her.
2. I am setting out to learn one more song on piano this year—the Clover’s 1959 doo-wop rock & roll hit Love Potion No. 9 written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
I started learning it this week, and after some confusion about the jarring opening D#-F#-G# chord, I asked my music genius friend Eliza (also my boss at work) what she made of it. She noted that this triple black key triad was a perfect half-step below the more cogent e minor chord, E-G-B, that starts the action a micro beat later; the song is in e minor. Eliza theorized: Maybe it’s a guitar thing, like you’re supposed to slide into the e minor, adding, But I’d leave that out on piano, it’s suited for guitar not piano.
But wait! The odd D# chord shows up again right away at the top of the very next measure. Ah ha! It’s not a guitar thing, it’s a doo-wop vocal swoop thing right into the e minor. This slurred batch of notes at the top of the song—and at the top of every verse—provides a Get-Set-Go jolt every time.
This discovery attuned my music theory antennae, and as I work through the rest of the song, the revelations are pouring in. For example, there’s an A# slide into a B that announces the chorus. This trick echoes the earlier slide, making the refrain all the more exciting.
3. Speaking of potions, I have to tout San Francisco-based perfume sorcerer COGNOSCENTI for their Fire & Rain scent. A few years back, as part of a New Year’s Resolution to pay more attention to vanity, I ended up ordering some perfumes from this small company. If I remember correctly, I was looking for a fancier version of the hippie scent I liked from my rock & roll youth—carrot oil. Carrot, it turned out, wasn’t popular with the grown-up market. The search led me to COGNOSCENTI, one company that still seemed to understood. They had a magical scent: No. 19, warm carrot.
I’m back on the vanity kick right now, and I returned to my trusted carrot-friendly small business. This time I chose No. 30, Hay Incense.
But the winner has turned out to be the complimentary sample they sent along with it, No. 44, Fire and Rain. I find myself going with a splash of Fire and Rain more often than No. 30. It’s not because I’m disappointed in the birch leaf-leather-oakwood musk of the Hay Incense, it’s because the surprising pine and charcoal combo of the award-winning Fire and Rain—it just won an honorable mention in the Artisan category from IAO (the Institute for Art and Olfaction!)—is swoon-inducing. My complimentary ampule has just about run out.