The price

the brief

a tale from the 1980s "men's movement" about coming to see the straitjacket of the male gender role in western cultures

My father once said to me that I was always "too damn emotional." I couldn't argue the point at the time because — like the majority of males in western cultures — I shared that view, and even felt guilty when I had emotions outside the narrow band of 'permitted feelings'. I had even internalized the notion that such guilt was normal, that it was just the price of being a man.

(And no, it didn't help that I knew I was a product of my upbringing every bit as much as my father was.)

I had struggled to understand and accept my emotional being across the years, and to let go of that inter-generational price. It had been a major focus of the meditation's self-awareness lessons. So it shouldn't have been a big surprise when the topic turned into the 9th karosong.

you should be saving your tears
you should be saving your cheers
you should be saving your prayers
at least saving them for the time

you really have a reason
a damn good reason

and that's the price
yeah the awful price
of being a man

What did surprise me was the style of the song that emerged. To my inner professional writer, the lyrics for The price felt shallow, even trite, like the kind of "golly gosh gee" self-help narrative you could find at the time in best-selling books and media commentary on the 'men's movement'.

But while the song's lyrics felt lacking, the emotions it unleashed were powerful and cleansing.

words from long ago and far away
from the place he then called home
as a little boy came running up
his eyes full of tears, knees full of blood

I don't remember much in particular of how this song started. I think it was a case where the lyrics and guitar chords pretty much came together. It was based around an E minor chord, had a good beat and came through fairly quickly (since my guitar playing had improved to merely abysmal by that time).

and there to greet him was his dad
home from work and all the little boy wanted
was for dad to say it's ok

but that was when yeah that was when
his father told him the price
yeah that was when his father sold him
the price

the awful price
of being a man

Still, the more the lyrics came, the more contrived they felt to me. Leaving aside the emotional lock-ins and insights that came with the lyrics, I didn't much like the song. (Which of course meant nothing to the song energies.)

However even my inner writer came to accept the lyrics had a well-constructed narrative arc across the song's five verses. It was an arc that took the little boy from those skinned knees to adulthood, fatherhood and to his own father's deathbed many years later, paying the price forward all the while.

well as these stories usually go
little boy grew up, became a man
then as they also often go
little boy wed, became husband

and then the hospital room
so big and white
and there in the crib so frail and dear

a son! to carry the name
a son! to carry the dream
and that was when, yeah that was when
he vowed to pass on the price

The spokesong lyrics for The price seemed to work with two different Yanni tracks, Midnight Hymn and If I Could Tell You. But neither track felt firm initially so I put it off while I worked on other songs.

When I finally went back it, as karosong #19 and the second-last of the all-original songs to be reversioned into a 2.0, Midnight Hymn had firmed as the async track. The lyrics stayed mostly spokesong and there were significant sections left for the 'angel chorus' to soar.

and as these stories almost always go
in some way the news is heard
the midnight call those cursed words
the ride downtown, the silent fear

and there on the bed so frail and dear
and as the son grew near he knew the end was here
and he finally, yes he finally
had a damn good reason

The lyrics barely changed going to the 2.0 version. The major difference was that the parenthetical phrase "(of being a man)" was dropped from the 2.0 title.

he said father! i've been saving my tears,
i've been saving my cheers,
and i've been saving my prayers

but now i have to know,
father! father!
was it worth it?

Although I still didn't especially like the lyrics, I enjoyed singing the 2.0 version. I liked having a choral backup to soften the roughness of my singing, so much I felt I had to acknowledge the 'angel chorus' in the opening credits. And that triggered two new lines in the lyrics.

father! father!

well there was no reply
the angels had sung
the old man had passed
but that was clear enough

and in his heart he knew he had the answer
and that was when, yeah
that was when he vowed
to break the chain

Post-script

Another 'waste not, want not' moment, in the early third phase, Yanni's track If I Could Tell You became the async partner for the 3.1 karosong Then I have to ask.

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