How Do I
What do you do when nobody’s paying attention? When you’re too old to be new and you got your big chance and missed the target?
Faithful readers know I’m a big Wendy Waldman fan, the great singer/songwriter hope of 1973, she wrote “Vaudeville Man” and “Mad Mad Me” on Maria Muldaur’s solo debut.
But then she didn’t live up to her promise. She took a detour to Muscle Shoals, confounding her audience, and despite getting five whacks of the bat at Warner Brothers she never connected, her moment expired.
Same thing happened to Bonnie Raitt, who then resurrected her career by speaking her truth on “Nick Of Time.”
Wendy Waldman speaks her truth on “How Do I.”
They make it look easy
To stand your ground
To let those bridges burn
We’re overwhelmed with stories about entrepreneurs doing it their way, celebrities talk trash in public, but we’re too afraid of loss to let go and speak our truth, and when we do and don’t get the result we desire we’re wounded. That’s the story of the baby boomers, they’re wounded, by loss, by unfulfilled expectations, by failed dreams. It was supposed to work out, then it didn’t, and what do you do with that?
If I had known how fast it goes
I would have shown you every day
That’s the cliche. Along with high school and college are the best days of your life.
I don’t agree with the latter, but the former…it’s true. Soon we’re as old as our parents, then we’re in the rearview mirror, then we’re done. How did this happen?
Wendy Waldman took a left turn, moved to Nashville, became a producer. Never seeking accolades for being a woman in a man’s field, she was a ground-breaker. And also a hit songwriter, most famously for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band with “Fishin’ In The Dark” and Vanessa Williams with “Save The Best For Last.”
She made an LP for Epic.
Another, an independent for Cypress.
But few paid attention.
Then it was the nineties.
But Wendy soldiered on. She reformed her group Bryndle with Karla Bonoff, Kenny Edwards and Andrew Gold. But they were independent before that was cool and old to boot, MTV was only interested in fresh faces.
And suddenly you find that nobody cares.
Do you feel that nobody cares?
I often do. The world is made for someone else. Someone who believes his or her best days are in front of them, who can take the world by storm, preferably an entrepreneur who can run herd over this great nation of ours.
But that wasn’t me, I grew up in an era of personal development. I can tell you what I read, what I listened to, where I went, but that doesn’t fill your bank account, and that seems to be the only thing that matters these days, especially as you get old and bills pile up and the workforce no longer needs you.
I was lying on my bed, depressed. I felt a song would make me feel better. I pulled up Wendy’s “Restless In Mind” on the Sonos app…and I saw a new track.
How could this be? I had no idea. I thought Wendy’d returned to college, finally pursuing her degree, pointed her arrow in a new direction, honing her composer chops.
I was almost afraid to listen to “How Do I,” because I was fearful it would be bad. It’s sad when your heroes disappoint you, when you realize they’re washed up, when they keep swinging for the fences in a stadium that’s empty.
But the sound was authentic, it cut me to the bone, I felt like Wendy was only singing for herself, that I was peeking in on the process.
She’s got the skills, she can write and play, produce too. So the end result is anything but amateurish. But it’s not what’s on the hit parade, more like an album track from 1973.
Late last night
I heard a tune
That only you could write
Girls and their fathers. Their deaths devastate them.
Wendy’s father was Fred Steiner, famous for writing the “Perry Mason” theme, never mind the childhood favorite “The Bullwinkle Show.” Fred’s gone now, as well as his wife, Shirley. The next generation carries the torch, but cannot forget those who came before.
“How Do I” nails this. Would fit perfectly in some TV show, you know that moment of loss and reflection. But the supervisors are young and want those wet behind the ears to fill out their schedules. When you’re aged you’re discarded, even if you’re a superstar, you just haven’t gotten the memo yet.
How do you go on?
There’s just one question in my mind tonight
How do I go on
How do I go on
Wendy maintains her optimism. I’m wobbly, I can’t always keep mine.
Not that she puts out new music on a regular basis. She’s been releasing intermittent singles, with an eye on an eventual album. But it’s not like “How Do I” got a ton of accolades, it barely made a ripple in the water when it was released last month.
But it’s out there, on Spotify, CD Baby, the aforementioned Soundcloud.
Because that’s how an artist goes on, by creating. Doing it whether anybody pays attention or not.
“How Do I” resonates because it’s not calculated, rather it’s a burst of sheer inspiration. That’s what an artist does, channel that revelation, create something out of it, capture that moment.
“How Do I” is not au courant.
But it’s forthright and honest and it resonates.
And that’s what I’m looking for.
