The musical irony contained in this song, Wonder, written and performed by former 10,000 Maniacs member Natalie Merchant is that although Natalie is singing about mysterious things, she does so in a joyful way with a diatonic, simple, sweet harmony and melody line. When this song is played at the speed of victory, then, it could well have the unexpected effect of “pushing the song over the top”–meaning that it is just too sickly-sweet, Pollyanna or silly. Here is a song with childlike lyrics, delivered i a gorgeous childlike, energetic manner, where the song keeps it’s cool by playing at a haunted danger speed. This is a excellent way to think about writing songs. Most importantly, once you are aware of the speed, the emotion it expresses by speed and how that sits in contrast to the Sesame Street™-like harmonic progression and the sweet “let me take care of you my baby” lyrics will empower you should you open up your mind to the idea.

In 1996, the television station VH-1 held an awards program honoring the best music of the past year. Natalie was nominated for ‘Wonder’. Instead of playing the drum-machine driven nominated version, she simply came out on stage alone and performed the entire song on an acoustic piano and her voice. As live performances as these go, Natalie Merchant has an extra spark. I remember the first time her old group, the 10,000 Maniacs, played “Like The Weather” and “What’s The Matter Here.” The poise and a state of aplomb to the point that she tuned the world out, it seemed, and looked ethereal.

I saw Natalie on October 15, 1995 at the Beacon Theater perform the songs from this album on this tour. It was absolutely one of the ten best of between 200-500 concerts I have seen, in largest part because either:
a) Natalie sang, *danced*, and played piano with an energy I had never seen before and was unique to her, thus I cannot describe it other than power+grace+poise=perfect equanimity;
b) The “idiot” view (I have been told that anyone who believes in any form of Western astrology is by definition an idiot”) – I understand the birthday, hers being today and mine in one week. Middle Scorpio, and lest you dismiss it, the coach of the French National Football Team during the World Cup COMPLETELY BANNED ANYONE BORN UNDER THE SIGN OF SCORPIO FROM EVEN TRYING OUT for the cup. It so happened that France’s best player was a Scorpio, and France lost. Still, there is, as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s birthday today, a misunderstanding about us! People don’t like us because, in my opinion, we are so unaffected as to be too harsh, blunt and critical and not feel the desperate need that most have – Wearing The Social Mask of Sanity. We wear it too (!), but are quick to drop it, hence the “sting” of a Scorpio. Problem is, Scorpio’s are not really liked by any other sign, and they (we) don’t really like each other. The only connection is that Scorpio’s ‘get’ each other.

No, I do not *BELIEVE* anything but the fact of (b) above, but in a 100-year study, Germans have found that those born in the months of October, November and December, on average, for no reason that could be isolated, live six months longer than everyone else. Academics have guessed things from the mother’s nutritional intake to the mood of family’s at Christmas/Kwanzaa, et al. time. I do know that I have written some things on this page in a most nonjudgmental manner, and many times have received emails with people essentially calling me too harsh, too arrogant, too simplistic.

All charts were calibrated and crunched in Microsoft Excel and synthesized on a mac iBook by me – during the Jets and Brett Favre defeat Herman Edwards’ Kansas City Chiefs. I think that as wonders are concerned, Brett is an athlete the likes of whom the [New York] New Jersey Jets have seen, ever. The New York Metropolitan area in general has not seen anything as Brett since Pedro Martinez signed with the New York Mets. After watching Vinny Testeverde and Chad Pennington for eleven years play quarterback for the New Jersey Jets, I still am in awe of the exponential difference in athletic ability, mainly in the form of confidence, strength, talent between Favre and anyone else I have seen other than Dan “You Can Wear My Gloves” Marino and, yeah, I’m that old, Namath, who threw the ball like no one ever has since. Basically as there has never been a running back with 10% of the pure talent of O.J. Simpson – but quite obviously, he was weak in ways, whereas Favre could not handle Vicodin nor Namath alcohol, O.J. seemed to have an envy issue. So said, Cochran secured that he was “100%, absolutely not guilty” of those crimes in the late 20th century that are still not good crimes one brings up in mixed company – but you can read this – no one knows!

Senator Barack Obama, win or lose: a wonder

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Meanspeed-Carlton Summary
song title=”Wonder”
composer=Natalie Merchant
performer=Natalie Merchant
mean speed/average tempo/median velocity=97.4 beats per minute
average beat=616 milliseconds
mean-emotion according to the meanspeed music conjecture=the border of enthusiasm and comfort.
mean tone=489.387 Hertz, 84 cents above A#4/Bb4=466.164 Hertz and 98 cents below B4=493.883 Hertz .

Meanspeed Music Chart requested by CRL/SSNY. I personally find it tasteless, but [REDACTED] continues to request it – I comply. Those of you who request know I try to comply. © 2008. Free use permitted in every State of the United States except New York, geographically, home of said requester, and Jackson Browne, as a person, for his delusional lack of respect for the United States recruits and ROTC officers and his bombastically arrogant attempt to collect “UNSPECIFIED DAMAGES” because the Senator from Arizona, the 72-year old prisoner of war survivor was so gross as to use a 20 second clip of Browne’s self-described “contemporary masterpiece – a piece that yes, *could* change the election – look how close the last two were, dudes.” Thank you Rolling Stone magazine for that story.

The meanspeed music conjecture is summarized in the Neumann Standard Tempo Scale –

/Ian Andrew Schneider/
October 26, 2008