Tucson COVID Tales No. 7: We’d Go Out Dancing, by Duncan Stitt

I got lucky with this song. Usually, I get a little snippet of a melody with a phrase attached to it and I have to build a song from there. “We’d Go Out Dancing” dropped out of the sky fully formed, with the first two verses and a chorus. From there it was just a matter of filling space.

I think the inspiration for the music came from the band STEAM, who had just finished recording a CD in my studio. Their waltzes, in particular, stuck with me. One was about a dancing chicken(!), the other was a young woman getting lost in the magic of the music and her partner’s embrace. In my mind, I was seeing an outdoor barn dance, with twinkling lights strung up above the dance floor and the moonlight shimmering silver in the trees.

“People are waltzing, under the stars” was the original first line, but it didn’t lead anywhere. It was just a sentimental snapshot from our pre-Covid lives. I already had “slap on the back and a shot and a beer” in the first draft of the second verse, so I reset the first line to match: “We’d go out dancing down at the bar.” The rest of the song is, basically, my life. 

“It started out as a very good year” was based on my gig schedule before the shutdown. It had been a busy season, between lucrative C&W band gigs and the Paul Green blues band on the side. When the shutdown hit, my old-school monthly planner became useless. I had no gigs and no studio clients, so I spent the next eight weeks remodeling the recording studio for social distancing, adding a separate entrance, a partition, a couple of exhaust fans, and a UV light in the A/C system. 

It took a couple of weeks to finish off the lyrics. Even after getting past the first draft, it seems I’m always stuck with one weak line that lingers, much like a mosquito when you’re trying to go to sleep. Suddenly, a new line pops up and the mosquito is gone. It can be maddening, but also rewarding in the end. 

This song isn’t particularly profound, it’s just a snapshot of a moment in time. Fortunately, I’ve moved on from that moment. My calendar is no longer gathering dust in a drawer, the recording studio is getting some bookings, and I’m feeling better about what’s to come. I do feel bad for all the venues and restaurants and their unemployed workers. It’s such a shame our country couldn’t have handled this better, but that’ll be covered in another song, no doubt. For now, all we can do is hope Dr. Fauci is right about a vaccine coming. I’m dying to go out and eat someone else’s cooking.

Duncan Stitt has been a longtime presence on the Tucson music scene, playing with the Saddle City Band in the 1980s and with John Coinman, Kevin Pakulis, and many other local musicians today. A recording artist and producer, he was the music director for the Last Waltz 50th Anniversary Show at the Fox Theater and the piano player and songwriter for David Fitzsimmons’s Old Pueblo Radio Show. Visit him at www.duncanstitt.com.

Category: TUCSON COVID TALES