Read Online Twang by Julie L. Cannon - Free Book Online Page A

lay on my pallet out on the screen porch, which incidentally was my bedroom. I was watching the moon from underneath a little burrow I made out of my covers. Mainly, I wrote the chorus to calm myself down. You know, as a sort of good-luck charm, because my mother was constantly warning me not to sin, not to walk down that wide, easy road that leads to hell, and many a evening she’d grab my hand and look up at the sky and say this little poem that went, ‘I see the moon, the moon sees me, please old moon, don’t tell on me.’ And of course, being a kid, the first thing I thought of when I did somethin’ bad was that the moon was gonna tell on me.” I paused as laughter rippled through the crowd.
    “Well,” I continued, “now I know the moon ain’t gonna tell on me.” I paused again, waited for the knowing smiles, the encouraging nods among the hundred or so people in the audience. “And so I wrote the rest of this song around that comforting chorus. A chorus I credit for getting me through many a long, scary night.”
    My guitar pick was like a part of my hand that found the right strings instinctively. My voice soared on the first note as Istrummed a mournful A minor on account of the song started out sweet and melancholy:
    When I was a little, wide-eyed gal
    I hated for darkness to fall
    I hid in the covers and hugged myself
    Squinched up in a tight little ball
    Singin’ ‘Oh, spooky moon, you taken the
    sunshine and you hid her away.
    But I guess it’s your turn to shine.
    I know I done wrong, but if you’ll keep your mouth shut,
    I promise to be better next time.’
    The melody moved into something more lively and playful, and I switched to a D minor, and then after a few stanzas right back to the tearful part, playing around with a sad bluesy line about night falling way too quickly when you’re little.
    Everything felt smooth and natural, and when I reached the chorus for the third time, I really poured my heart into the lyrics, going back to the screen porch in Blue Ridge, Georgia, where I did have lots and lots of fears, but not particularly about the moon. I could sense that the crowd was totally with me as I heard my own clear, high notes boomeranging off the ceiling.
    As I moved along to the final verse, I could see the people’s faces changing. I could feel every single person in that room straining to hear what the adult me had discovered about that scary moon, wanting me to overcome my terror. I saw tears glistening in a few of the eyes on the front row when I got to the part about how children believe whatever adults say to them and how it affects them, for good or for bad. I knew I was doing it right because I felt that surge of joy, avelvety-petaled rose of knowing that bloomed inside me whenever I sang something the listeners connected to so strongly, when I literally felt myself merging with a song. Those final twanging notes rose and dipped and threaded themselves in and through the crowd, alive, by some miracle, lingering like a dream.
    I finished, and there was a stunned silence of maybe three seconds, which felt like the calm before the storm, and then a thunderous burst of applause and boot stomps and whistles and “Yeah! Way to sing!” I knew without a doubt it was louder and longer and more heartfelt than the previous three performers put together. I bowed humbly from the waist, and said, “Thank you very much,” just like Elvis, and then there was another sweet round of applause as people got up out of their seats and cheered with fists in the air.
    Waves of love from the crowd rolled and crashed over me as I stepped off the stage, threading through the tables toward the back wall. I wasn’t surprised by the lineup of hands patting my shoulder, my arm, touching my hair, or the voices saying more nice things to me. I wasn’t surprised that I wanted to stop time and just revel in that moment a spell—like I always did after I sang. When the euphoria did pass, as the next