Pale Compromises

Commentary:
Re-recorded live in mono with a new set of strings and bridge-pins.
I wrote this after a night when I went to go get Salsa Dance lessons and my instructor turned out to be a very pretty girl. At the time I was looking for things to write songs about, so I wrote a song about it, although being the kind of solipsistic freak who writes songs that no one will ever hear and then comments on them-- the song winds up being much more about myself. Dancing standing as synecdoche for all of those aspects of life in which I have never really been able to participate.
This is actually one of the songs that I think is the best, but it still isn't finished because all the verses are basically interchangeable although there is a verse and a chorus arrangement, so I never know what order they should go in. It used to be called "Teach me to Dance" but I changed to the current title as an omage to Rufus Wainwright.


Lyrics:
Teach me to dance
Tonight begins with you
help me join the souls
who know what to do.

Teach me to dance
Do you think you could?
Teach me all the things
I never understood.

Teach me to dance
and I'll become my feet
I'll circle across the floor
and never find my seat.

Teach me to dance
oh its been so long
since I could move my body
oh, and feel at home.

Teach me to dance
and hold me tight
let me move with you
in the fading light

Teach me to dance
I'll teach you to sing
We won't be afraid
Lord, of anything.

Teach me to dance
look me in the eye
so I don't feel locked
in my broken mind

Teach me to dance
baby all the time
so when the music stops
I won't be left behind.

Teach me to dance
remind me again
that after everything
I am just a man.