LIGHT ON
There is a young musician, a jazz pianist about 35 years old, single, a country town background in Western Australia. He is currently in one of his many stays in a hospital for people who suffer from mental illness. He has both manic-depression and schizophrenia. Tonight he invited me out to hear him play in a small, classy bar in downtown Perth. We went to McDonalds for a chocolat milkshake and chips to finish the evening. -Ron Price, 11:00 pm, 15 December, 1995. Rivervale: On arrival home.
He plays it light in the corner off the bar
and everyone goes right on talking �cause
this is light on, light on, strickley background..
This guy is not a heavy dude, but he�s
carried some big bricks over the years.
He keeps on playing light on, light on.
The sounds from the keys float on over
the drinks, down, down over the smiles,
unobtrusively, unobtrusively.
Who is this guy who sits in the corner
rolling it out happy-as-Larry?
A guy who�s trying to play it light �cause
you can�t always play it light, can you dude?
Light and heavy, light and heavy, the days
pass on and on, passed this piano into
some sweet-scented streams of eternity
where it is always light on, light on
and you can always have a drink
from the nearby camphor fountain
and a bliss you have never known.
Ron Price
15 December 1995
