They honor someone every year, like Bonnie Raitt or Stevie Wonder but this year it’s Sir Paul McCartney.  This means a concert with Paul and artists paying tribute to him.  Oh boy.  Here are the highlights for me:

-Meeting Carole King.  Carole freaking King.  She is lovely.  I tell her what an inspiration she is and thank her for the music.  ”Hey ain’t it good to know you’ve got a friend? People can be so cold.  They’ll hurt you.  They’ll desert you.  They’ll break your soul if you let them, oh yeah but don’t you let them.”  Those words and that song is channeled inside my DNA.  (You are right they do try. But oh no, I won’t let them.)  Thank you Ms. King.

-Paul McCartney opening show with “Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band.”  He is remarkably youthful and just so cool.  He just points his finger sometimes but not like a Mick Jagger point with a pout and a strut… but a cool point like..”Hey, did you hear that? That was for you.”  He…he…. is just awesome.  I decide he is pointing at me most of the time.  I am reminded of a moment that occurred during my brief stint in Atlanta, GA.  Atlanta doesn’t have a winter. Atlanta has two summers, a fall, and a season between June and September I unaffectionately nickname “hell on earth.”  But one holy night in December, it snowed, lacy white flakes swirling down from the southern clouds.   I was in the parking lot of the grocery store with my sister Mary and we look over to see a boy of about six walking, looking up at the sky with his arms out.  ”Mom! Mom!” he says with an emphatic incredulous wonder, “Mom!  It’s a MIRACLE!!”.  This is how I feel when Paul sings.

-Allison Krauss and Union Station singing “No More Lonely Nights“.  Outstanding.  This song is a contender for my favorite Paul McCartney song and they really do it justice.

-Neil Young AND Crazy Horse KILLING “She Was Just 17″ OMG.  During the solo’s they get in a circle and shred it.  They get a unanimous standing ovation.  It made me say “dang!”, and then pause, and then say “dang!” again.

-Coldplay performing “We Can Work It Out”.  I can’t even talk about it.

-Finally, James Taylor singing “Yesterday”.  Are you kidding me?  Devastating.

-Then Paul comes on for the close and after the sweetest, shortest acceptance speech he’s playing “I’m gonna sit right down and write myself a letter” by Fats Waller.  What? Amazing.

-He closes with “Golden Slumbers” all the way from “once there was a way to get back homewards” to… “and in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make…..“.  Oh man.

-Being so utterly humbled.  I aspire to such achievement.  The sheer body of work of the people just sitting around me is astounding.

-Coldplay.  I still cannot talk about it.  All I can do is sigh and look dreamy eyed.

-Managing to walk pretty cool the whole time in the shoes.  I do not even get a blister.

-And of course being at a table with my publisher Jon Platt of EMI music publishing.  (This is what it looks like when I’m at the Musicares Gala with him.)  With his invitation, yet another dream comes true.  One sweet dream… came true…. today.

Tonight I’m attending the Musicares Gala honoring Paul McCartney.  It’s another red carpet, another job for the glam squad, another dress, more expensive shoes and an expensive clutch…  Every event seems easier since that last one though… that last one was a doozy.  This one is just a celebration of a legend, and not a contest.  I still can’t believe I get to go.

I’m about to see a Beatle and who knows, even meet a Beatle?  Coldplay will be there and so will James Taylor.  The thought of getting to see them perform live makes me smile all the way inside…  No.  Not even that tells you how happy I am.  I wonder:  What songs are they going to play?  How am I going to contain myself?  And if I do meet Sir Paul, will I fall off my shoes right into him?  Nope.  In Tina I trust.

Anyway, here are three songs I love inspired by the shoes. Be warned, not all links are family friendly or “P.C.”  Just like my shoes.

Shoe song #1

Shoe song #2 (R Rated song I am currently addicted to…)

Shoe song #3

and every object has invisible strings running from it attached to memories that come to life when you touch it.  This will be the dress.  (this is a thread to a memory)

I ask myself what I want to say, and an arrow spins on a board of adjectives in my mind, landing on a different one each time or pointing all ways at once.  But I must decide, a few big decisions and a million small ones each taking us one beat closer.  This will be the dress.

And one by one we make them, Stacy and me.  Stacy knows the difference between vintage inspired and just plain old.  She knows the importance of trying a bunch of wrong things to be sure the right choice is right.  She knows it’s best not to have a set destination, so that when you finally get there, what you are wearing is a spectacular surprise.  She knows how to look at me like I’m crazy without making me feel bad.  I wonder about people who’s job it is to be looked at.  I think, if I had to do this all this time I would be exhausted and insane.  I long to be in jeans and so engrossed in writing that I lose all sense of myself.  I am more comfortable with that discomfort.

But for now it’s life in front of a mirror.  And every flaw is magnified.  And Stacy tells me some of them are completely fictional but I don’t believe her on the inside.  And every inch is scrutinized and it’s day after day of reckoning.  And I want to hide and I can’t.  I have industrial strength undergarments overriding nature, defying gravity and creating an illusion based on the truth but taking some creative license.  I step into the first fitting of the second version of the dress and am transformed.  I start to feel pretty.  At moments I feel fierce.  Stacy is right about everything.  I think, I wish I could do this all the time.  I wish every weekend was a red carpet and every day was a creation of another shot in pretty magazine cover life.  This is the dress.

Karen, the master seamstress, can pin material around your curves with just one hand and isn’t afraid to laugh at the same time.  The first version was made in muslin, this is the second version in polyester, and the final version will be in the satin and silk.  It’s so it can be just right.  She seems to take the same amount of care as God must when making a tree or a flower.  Karen works all day and worries at night.  I am learning a lot.  Mostly, I cannot believe the love that is going into it.  I am the princess at the happily ever after end of a fairy tale. This will be the dress.

And I’m going to wear it on a particular Sunday night.  And I’m going to walk down the red carpet.  And maybe everyone will be looking and maybe no one will care.  And maybe I will win and maybe I will lose.  And maybe my whole life will change and maybe it won’t, but I’m not the same.  I hope I feel as beautiful as the feeling the song was born out of.  I hope I am shining from the inside.  Whatever happens, and however it feels, it will happen in this dress.

It is midnight blue.

Every object has invisible strings running from it attached to memories that come to life when you touch it.  The longer you have it the more strings there are.  This will be the dress.

Happy!