There’s a song I’ve started to play on the piano. It’s called “Money,” a fairly straightforward arrangement by Burt Bacharach. The only problem is Liza Minnelli’s eyes. They keep staring back at me from the opposite page.
“Money” is from the 1981 movie Arthur. My sister purchased the movie songbook years ago. It’s chock-full of Bacharach’s bittersweet melodies, chords with a hint of sadness. But it also has pictures from the film: shots of Dudley Moore as lovable drunk Arthur Bach, John Gielgud as his butler Hobson, and Liza Minnelli, Arthur’s love interest Linda Marolla, with her bulging eyeballs. Even as I read the notes on the right page, I feel Minnelli’s penetrating gaze on the left.
And yet I continue to play because, at the end of the day, I’m a sucker for cheesy tunes. On a recent visit to my parents’ house, I went through a stack of sheet music my sister and I acquired from our piano lesson days. It’s considerable, in terms of cheesiness: the theme songs to Cheers, Chariots of Fire, and Hill Street Blues, music from Annie, “Joanna” by Kool & the Gang, “Memory” from (shudder) Cats, just to name a few.
Like my older sister, I started lessons around age 5 and continued for another six years. Our teacher, Joe Clouser, was a retired band instructor. It must have pained him to teach my sister how to play Madonna’s “Holiday.” Not that he ever said a bad word. In fact, Joe was about the kindest teacher any kid could hope for. He’d nudge you along the way, and you were expected to do your lessons and drills throughout the week. He had his pupils perform a yearly recital for elderly patients at a rehabilitation clinic—patients I’m pretty sure were hearing impaired. But there was no Whiplash sort of terror. (On the other hand, my onetime violin instructor Nadia Koutzen was a genuine taskmaster. Her father, Boris Koutzen, played violin in the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Toscanini. I quit after three months.)
Over the years, Joe would bequeath to us music sheets from his personal stash, none of which could be considered cheesy. In fact, the most prized of these is an Amsco Music compendium of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms that I own to this day. Its pages are now yellowed and tattered. The copyright date is 1935, and the cover price is $1, but “West of Rockies $1.25.” Vladimir Horowitz could have used this book for a performance, based on these full arrangements, riddled with flats and sharps.
Ten years ago, I vowed to master Beethoven’s Sonate Pathétique, all three movements, found in the thick of this compendium. I was about halfway there before getting derailed by having children. In the interim I reverted to some truly cheesy numbers, including “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” by Journey (a big hit at parties and weddings) and “Sweet Caroline.” For some reason I became fixated on John Lennon’s “Love.” But in order to get the chord changes right, I needed to listen to the song on YouTube. This meant seeing a video of Lennon and Yoko Ono. At some point they are naked between the sheets. It really wasn’t worth it.
In any event, now that the kids are older, I decided to return to Sonate Pathétique. Some of the pages are completely torn off. One of the trickiest sections is just after the intro, marked Allegro di molto e con brio. The left hand hammers a C octave at a furious pace—at which point I am reminded of another song that requires the left hand to go back and forth, on a D octave: “My Life” by Billy Joel. Next thing I know, I’m playing bits of “My Life” followed by “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant.” (The Billy Joel Complete collection belongs to my wife, so I blame her.)
The penchant for cheese is an affliction, really. But every so often it can be helpful. I once worked a gig playing piano for a yacht club on the Jersey shore. It paid well, but I did have to come up with two hours’ worth of music. At some point I had exhausted all the classical tunes I knew. Luckily none of the ladies playing bridge noticed when I began a gentle rendition of “Home Sweet Home” by metal band Mötley Crüe.
I continue to make progress on the Beethoven. But then I’ll pop in a CD of Vladimir Horowitz playing the Sonate Pathétique and realize how many light years I am behind the legendary pianist in terms of speed, fluidity, and grace. Pathetic, you might say. But I bet Horowitz never had to deal with playing a song while enduring the unnerving stare of Liza Minnelli.
