Chris

I felt the need in this song to say the name of a person. However, one of the major pitfalls in folky-type music is when a song is obviously written in the voice of a man to a woman, or vice-versa. It can complicate the situation when someone else sings the song.

This can go wrong, as when Joan Baez sings, "If you were a carpenter, and I were a lady, would you marry me anyway?" Obviously he would, on economic grounds alone. Leave that song to the gents or sing it as written for an up-to-date gay-marriage message.

On the other hand, when Sophie Zelmani sings "Most of the Time," the effect is pure genius. As the song says, "Most of the time, I wouldn't change it if I could." But then she does change it, and she sings, "I can survive, I can endure. I don't even think about – him." When she breaks the rhyme, it feels like she's doing what Steve Earle once threatened to do, viz. standing on Dylan's coffee table in her cowboy boots. It is a good thing.

There is a third way, known as the "Kristofferson Gambit." So maybe it's in his honor that I thought of the androgynous-enough name, "Chris."