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My Ballerina

from This Perfect Day by Bill Gable

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    "This Perfect Day" CD by Bill Gable, which includes an attached 8-page booklet with song lyrics and images.

    Includes unlimited streaming of This Perfect Day via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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about

I wrote this tender poem of encouragement for my ex-wife Dani. I was studying orchestration at the time and studying lots of scores, where of course the impressionists loomed large. I had played some of Debussy’s piano music growing up, but I was also listening at the time a lot to the first Blue Nile album, “A Walk Across The Rooftops,” and this piece was some kind of melding of those sensibilities, intentionally halting and crude, "like a china doll in my rough hands." Thanks to both Stephen Barber and Bill Ginn, this beautiful arrangement worked perfectly. It was on this session that I first met Jon Clarke, who became a dear friend and collaborator for many years afterwards.

lyrics

a panda bear
or lilypads
or something that could be
so easily destroyed
your fragile beauty
like a china doll
in my rough hands
or an ever lingering phrase of Claude Debussy
tireless and timeless
my love for you

on your toes
never falter, ballerina
we’ll take this life by storm
no matter how it goes
never altering
my ballerina

a swirling ring
of pirouettes
like the morning light
Monet captured on his canvas
each stroke perfected
the promise of
a simple man
to always be here
to see you land protected
we all lose our balance
so easily

on your toes
never falter, ballerina
we’ll take this life by storm
no matter how it goes
never altering
my ballerina

credits

from This Perfect Day, released December 8, 2003
(Arr. by Stephen Barber & Bill Ginn; Conducted by Bill Ginn)

Bill Gable: piano, synth and vocals
Carol Robbins: harp
Joel Derouin: violin
Suzie Katayama: cello
Rob Lockhart: flute & clarinet
Jon Clarke: oboe
Bill Ginn: bass clarinet
Mark Hatch: trumpet
Joe Meyer: french horn

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Bill Gable Los Angeles, California

BILL GABLE is an uncompromisingly original American singer-songwriter, producer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist whose music spans the boundaries between pop, jazz and world music.

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