Notice me, Alan!
Hi. Welcome. Got a snack? A tea or whatnot? Comfortable?
I'll explain.
First, this is important(!): I'm not being serious. Or, more accurately: yes, I am being serious, but not serious-serious. This undertaking is tongue-in-cheek...ish. Or let's say, it's not not tongue-in-cheek, (that is, family, you needn't be concerned....about this).
Here's the story.
This endeavor materialized in direct consequence of an event that took place on the eve of March 8th, 2023, in the picturesque town of Millburn, New Jersey. I'll get to it very shortly. I just need to fill you in on a few precursory data points...
This is me circa age 6¾ (the year isn't important, really).
I don't know what I'm working on. That's immaterial; this photograph is here to establish that I have been writing rhymes since an adorably tender age. I have never stopped. That's the straight-up truth. About a decade and a half after this candid photo was snapped, for instance, when I was working towards a Bachelor of Science in Biology, I routinely found myself staying up the night before a major lab report was due, working feverishly... on an epic poem. (Got the clue. Switched majors. Landed on Linguistics and Creative Writing. As it should always have been).
Anyway, this next Kodak moment is important too.
Because this one is entirely staged. I don't play the piano. Much to my folks' temporary chagrin. (They got over it). I took lessons for a few months. It didn't pan out. Neither did the handful of guitar or uke sessions I treated myself to in my 20s. It is my biggest regret.
You're right, it isn't too late. Totally. It's just that there are only so many hours in a day, and when I'm not day-jobbing to pay Con Edison, I choose intense relaxation and joy which always translate into lyric-writing. You think I'm being hyperbolic.
I do love a good embellishment, but in this case, I am not. Lyrics are the way I unwind, they are my go-to technique to combat the blues--my most reliable way to up the serotonin levels. Nothing else does it.
My favorite lyricists? That's such a great question. There are a few.
Modernly speaking...Glenn Slater is fantastic. What David Zippel did in Hercules is delightful. Jack Feldman...I mean, oof. Every single syllable is bliss. And what Howard Ashman did in everything he touched can't be topped. You might have picked up on a thread.
This handily brings us back to Millburn, New Jersey.
If you and I regularly speak about creative...anything, you know I cannot go a conversation and a quarter without mentioning Alan Menken. Every lyricist dreams of populating a Menken melody with their wordplay. This is an axiom.
So, the other month I'm in Millburn, at the Paper Mill Playhouse, seeing Hercules the musical. The--for sure--pre-Broadway run. It's excellent, by the way. The singing, the choreography, the costumes, the orchestration, the book, the melodies, the melodies, the melodies, the melodies.
And so, naturally, I grab my phone during intermission, take a photo of the playbill, and commence a message to my close friend. The message takes a sharp turn mid-text.
Here it is, undoctored.
So I decide that after the performance, if Mr. Menken is there and I did not hallucinate him, I'm going to be brave. Standing ovation concludes, audience starts to clear, I crane my neck in every angle. There he is. Confirmed. I make a bee-line. I can't commit to the accuracy of this next dialogue because it's been a couple of months and I was a little tipsy with fangirl endorphins, but... the gist was this:
Me: "Alan, my heart is racing and my knees are weak, this is such an honor."
Alan: "Should we call for medical help?"
Me: "Maybe. I'm a lyricist and there is not a day that goes by that I don't bring your name up twenty times."
Alan: "Wow, okay."
Me: "I'm just going to go for it. I don't think this will happen, but what are the chances of you allowing me to share my lyrics with you, to try and knock your socks off so that maybe one day, in some imaginary pipedream of a world, I might realize my wish of working with you?"
Alan: "Send them to ......@.....dot com."
Me: "I... uh... thank you. That's... I will. Thank you so much."
We take a selfie.
Alan: "How are your vitals now, are you okay?"
Me: "Nah, I won't be for several days. Thanks for everything."
You know...more or less.
"
Needless to say the following week is a study in unremitting weighing, re-assessing, and re-re-re-examining which songs I ought to appoint as sock-knocker-offers. Finally I settle on two, and once I also complete my tenacious mulling over of the cover letter, I cast the die to the wind, and, ever so chill, let the fates take it from there.
For the most part. There is, of course, this site, titled Notice me, Alan!
So I suppose I should say something about that.
As it happens, at the time of publication of these musings, Alan has not yet responded to my message. Much to my relief, he also has not yet viewed my lyric videos, (which I know thanks to YouTube Analytics tools and such, and that refresh button browsers have).
Alan, if you're reading this: No rush. Whatsoever. You indubitably receive 572 starry-eyed messages per day. And you don't know me. Or what I do with lyrics. So I wrote a few new songs about what I do with lyrics, illustrating those things I claim to do, set to well-loved tunes you might recognize.
This is the part where I should clarify how this whole operation is tongue-in-cheek...ish. First, it was, above all else, a fun lyrical exercise. And an entertaining role to play. It kept me chuckling to myself as I worked, and swept me into that realm where time stops. In that sense it fulfilled its purpose as creative venture and I've crowned it a win.
Of equal significance: It is about Alan Menken, yes, but it also isn't. Notice me, Alan! is at the same time very much Notice me, Disney!, Notice me, Shaiman! Flaherty! Notice me, any and all y'all in the industry! It's got Alan in the title because, well, there is only one Alan; we all grew up (or old) on his spellbinding notes, and it was such an extraordinary experience to meet this person who has quite literally shaped neurons in my brain since around 1989, and in all likelihood, in your brain too. But this enterprise is an attempt to strut my lyrical acrobatics in front of anyone in the audition room who is looking.
Before I sign off and leave you with my dance, allow me a completely earnest parting message--
There is nothing in the world that I love more than writing showtune lyrics.
It is my remedy, my comfort, my purest happiness. I do it well. No faux modesty for this. Know that I don't describe anything else I do with this confidence. But as for lyrics--I know the work. I rhyme meticulously and as surprisingly as I can, I have the utmost reverence for meter, I know the power of an internal rhyme and try to employ it often. All of this should be shown, not told. It will be momentarily. But in case you weren't going to click... My testimony is that this is something I can do, and something I have been doing for decades. And I dream of doing it on a scale that can reach and touch a lot more people.
Thanks for listening.
Meira