Originally published on How to Grow a Poem in October, 2023.
I always knew that How to Grow a Poem would take this turn one day.
Without getting bogged down in what scholars tell us about the ancient and enduring relationship between poetry and music, as evidenced in the Western world by the work of the ancient “singer-songwriters” like Homer and Sappho to Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan in our time, and globally by poets from every continent and culture, I will just say that the musicality of poetry has always been a compelling element of the art for me, even in the most abstract of poems.
So, I’ve always planned to include a conversation with a songwriter among the varied discussions that make up this project. And I always knew just where I would turn when the time came.
Ronn Kilby is an omni-creative guy I’ve known for well over 50 years now, ever since the coffeehouses and clubs of the 1960s folk music craze, and I’ve “followed his career with great interest,” as people say. That “career” isn’t easy to summarize (see his bio, below). It includes his early work as a musician performing, on guitar and piano, his original songs and covers of everything from Yip Harburg to Bob Dylan classics at small, obscure coffeehouses and in the premier East Coast folk clubs of the day—Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village, Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, New York, the Main Point in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, to name a few. It also includes gigs as a studio musician, a taxi driver, newspaper and studio photographer, stevedore(!?), and ultimately a forty-year career in television, mostly in Southern California.
In his spare time, he has designed and built acoustic guitars and furniture, brewed craft beers, and gone on long motorcycle journeys across North America, Africa, Australia, and Europe.
You get the idea.
But the songwriting never stopped, although he mostly stepped back from performing years ago. So I called him recently to talk about how he makes a song, specifically his “Down to Mexico,” written twenty-some years ago simply for its own sake.
His songs, he said, most often come out of two folders he keeps. In one, he collects recorded bits of the music that comes to him; in the other, notes to preserve phrases, images, maybe scraps of conversations he hears. Occasionally, he goes into the folders to see if there’s a marriage between some of the music and some of the words.
For “Down to Mexico,” the music came from a mistake he made one day while playing the guitar at home, and the words came from a collection of redemptive images he preserved after an experience that grew out of a lot of emotional pain.
He was about to get divorced, he explained, but still living with his soon-to-be ex-wife. And the stress of the situation was about to be compounded by a visit from her best friend, who would be a house guest at a difficult time, “so I took a week away.”
And he and “a friend” went “down to Mexico,” he said, where a string of real-life images yielded what would become the heart of the song, lyrically.
“[The song] is an allegory,” Kilby said, “and ‘escape’ is the second word. For me, Mexico represents refuge and adventure.”
While drawn from real life, however, those images he collected—“seven sad sections,” “brothels and bars” and the rest—required some work before they fit properly in the song.
“The rhythm of the words and the rhythm of the music have to be compatible in writing a song. Unlike the precision of poetry, sometimes you have to shoehorn it in,” he said.
“With some of the images, I went through four or five ways for saying the same thing.”
For Kilby, the starting point for a song is in the music, rather than the words, and that’s where the “mistake” comes in. He said he was playing a Lyle Lovett song one day when he made a mistake,
“But I just kept playing and following the mistake,” he said, ending up with another recording in his music folder, one that he dug out later to pair with the words from his escape to Mexico.
That melody, he pointed out, is written in 3/4 time, a waltz rhythm, but one that is obscured somewhat by complexity of the arrangement in the finished song.
Let’s listen now to Ronn Kilby’s Down to Mexico here, and then take a dive into the lyrics just below.
DOWN TO MEXICO We'll escape down to Mexico, and just get lost in the crowd. Our Spanish is lousy, we're two loco gringos But God knows we're not proud. We'll cross the street catty-corner to church Sit in the very back pew. Our kisses, like prayers, we'll place on the altar And hope that there isn't a coup (while we're there) Down in Mexico. Whoa down in Mexico. When we go down to Mexico, we'll leave the car at the border. They've got laws down in Mexico Guaranteed to keep order (if you know what I mean). We can aimlessly wander through seven sad sections And fear neither man nor beast. Our lives on the line, we won't even flinch 'Til we encounter the Mexican Police (La Policia) Down in Mexico. Whoa down in Mexico. When we go down to Mexico they'll kiss our American behinds. We'll haggle a little just to stay in practice. And lose all track of time, We'll peek into doorways of brothels and bars Flirt with disaster and such. We'll laugh about nothing 'til we cry in our beers And then complain we paid too much Down in Mexico. Whoa down in Mexico. When we go down to Mexico, we don't expect to find answers. They've got questions in Mexico, no revelations. Pay your money, take your chances. We can crawl into a couple them big Margaritas, Speak faux French all day. We'll get dull and confused, vaguely abused, Lose our virginity several ways. Down in Mexico. Whoa down in Mexico. There's a saying in Mexico, Vaya Con Dios my friend. I don't know what that means. I just know that it seems like All good things must end. But there's something to be said for living life on the edge Occasionally crossing the line. Waking up with tattoos you don't understand Wondering if you've lost your mind.. Whoa down in Mexico. Whoa down in Mexico. --Words and Music Copyright Ronn Kilby
BIO: Ronn Kilby has more than three decades experience in TV, working for six stations around the country as art director, writer/producer, and senior creative director -- ending up at the NBC owned station in San Diego, where he was Manager of Advertising & Promotion. After 12 years at KNSD, he left at the end of 2004 to start his own boutique production house. An accomplished musician and awarded composer, he designs and builds guitars, makes beer, and enjoys solo international motorcycle touring. He has received 15 Emmy Awards, 41 Emmy nominations. four Tellys, two NY Film Festival Awards, Addys, Homburg, Member NATAS Silver Circle. two Promax Gold Medallions, two Silver, Broadcast Designers' Association Silver Award, Film (The Tutor) featured at Cannes Film Festival. His independent film, SKIN: The Movie, a quirky comedy featurette he wrote and directed, has won more than 42 awards, enjoyed another three dozen nominations and has screened in more than 50 film festivals in eight countries.
Before his television career, he worked as a Musician/Composer, Newspaper Photographer, Catalog Studio Photographer, Book Designer, Cab Driver, Stage Manager for rock group, Furniture Maker, Antiques Metal Plater, Stevedore, A/V Technician, Print Shop Manager, Certified Reprographics Technician.
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