Hit Songs, Sirens, and Ice Cream

My brother-in-law in NJ was asking how the composing career was going, and he mentioned all I really need is one hit song. And he's right. That's all any of us really need. But I'm not writing songs, I explained, I am composing symphonies and big choral works. Blank stare. 

Canadian Frank Mills once wrote a hit song. If you were alive in the late 70s, you know it. A simple piano-based instrumental hit in C Major with a few predictable turns all with a hypnotic alberti bass-like left hand accompaniment. What's not to love? I even played it myself as a youngster. Now here I am waaaay up in our attic sublet (the average Brooklyn dwelling has 26 steps) in Brooklyn and it is blasting up into the windows from a very slow moving ice cream truck. Yes, "Music Box Dancer" was attacking my brain today right when I was trying to frantically write down a few pages of a Kyrie for my Missa Brevis while it was still clear and new in my head. I've since combed the piece for any Mills influence, and I think I am safe. 

So there is some noise here, but there are way less sirens than at home in Victoria, Canada. Victoria is siren heaven. Sirens 24 hours a day. Every car in Victoria has a siren and there are big signs near our house that say "Activate Sirens Now!" Here I think I have heard three, and there are 50 times as many people all living in close quarters. So why are there almost no sirens here? Obviously everyone is really healthy because they are walking up all those stairs to get to their apartments. 

OK I gotta go, I am craving an ice cream cone.