trouble spots

So I finished While You Can today (I've pretty much settled on that as a title now), and I was going to get started on the next song...but I'm finally hitting real trouble. There are a couple of things I'm realizing: one, dialogue songs are much harder to write than internal monologue songs (even ones with multiple people), and two, dialogue songs based on scenes with really strong dialogue are very, very hard to write. I was sort of able to get around that with Lunch Hour by writing down some phrases/concepts I liked, but then disregarding most of the dialogue and just focusing on the sentiments expressed in the scene. This scene, however - the dinner scene between Norman and Marion - is quite possibly my favorite scene in the film, and I don't know how to translate it into music.

The entire scene is just so well-written. Their conversation is sufficiently awkward, but also sort of heartbreakingly honest - Norman is an awkward communicator, but he has moments where his feelings about his mother and his life sort of burst out of him into the middle of whatever he's saying. Throughout the conversation, he seems to oscillate between being sort of distant and formal and being very, very open. The "private traps" bit is especially good: "You know what I think? I think we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever climb out... I was born in mine. I don't mind it anymore... Oh, I do, but I say I don't." It's like each line of his (I've separated them with ellipses) is more honest than the last. And then Marion mentions putting his mother away "someplace," and we see the flash of her inside him - his sudden anger and aggression at the thought of putting her away. It's all so well done, and so well-acted, and I don't know how to do it justice musically.

I could, of course, skip it - and were I writing the script, too, I might do just that. But I feel like I need to include it, since all I'm doing is writing music, and ideally I'd write a song for every significant moment in the show. And even though I'm not quite doing that, this scene absolutely deserves a song.

This was mostly just me taking a break to rant about it a little bit before I keep trying. Emilie and Bridget were in for a bit (I paused writing when they arrived), and I showed them this scene so they could get a sense for what I was grappling with. It wasn't super constructive, but it was nice to be able to talk about it with someone (and also share this scene, since it's awesome). I guess we'll see how things go.

Bye for now.