22. I Can't Stop This Feeling

Jason Kahn

Voice, drums, recordings here and there.

Composed July - August, 2015

I started this piece walking down by the Limmat on a cold, windy day. Whitecaps chopped

the water and I was a bit out of breath from fighting the wind and trying to keep warm by

moving at a brisk pace. Under the Hardbrücke the deep resonance there swallowed me up.

A long rowboat chained to the concrete pilings of the bridge whipped to and fro in the strong

current. I headed up the stairs to my studio.

Schulhaussingen happens twice a year at my kids' school. I usually go and I also usually

record this. I like the fact that all the parents are there to hear their kids sing. People in my

neighborhood come from all over the world. It's cool to see so many different nationalities,

hear all the different languages. The kids sing these really goofy songs but it's a nice vibe all

the same. And afterward they all mingle in the entrance to the auditorium. Their laughter and

shouts fill the space like a fierce storm. I like to disappear in those voices.

Most days I go to play the drums at a musicians collective not far from my house. I bring my

cymbals, set up and start to play. Nothing in particular. Sometimes I have the Sony along

and record whatever it is I'm playing. I guess I'm always recording something. The material

just piles up. I like to go back and pick stuff randomly. It's amazing sometimes what I've

recorded. Maybe in that moment it just sounded OK, nothing special. But with time, wow,

where did that come from? I don't remember that!

I'm not sure when I started singing. I guess when I was a kid. And then in some bands later

on. But those recordings never saw the light of day. And now a few years ago I started again.

It's not really something I practice at technically, like I did the drums. More just when I get a

hankering to do it. It's just a feeling. Sometimes I get the chance to do this in front of an

audience, either alone or with others. I like sitting there, vulnerable. There's nothing between

me and the listener. No microphone. Just a guy sitting there on a chair making sounds with

his mouth.

I'm not sure how this piece came together. I knew how I wanted to start it, down by the

Limmat. And the end had to be this lullaby which I sang to nobody in particular. But the rest

was just this hole. Finding that recording of the kids singing had to be one station between

the beginning and end. And then too Alice learning to talk. I think she was two years old then.

Now she talks non-stop, so it was funny hearing her wrestle with wildebeest and giraffe. Time flies, as they say. The title is taken from the lyrics to Hooked on a Feeling. I prefer the

B.J. Thomas interpretation of this song to Blue Swede's commercially more successful

version.

Why did I put the drums in there? Hard to say. Maybe as a musical interlude?

The beginning is me reading a text I wrote about a man standing at an intersection in

downtown Los Angeles, jingling coins in a tin cup. This happened around fifteen years ago.

The city has long since cleaned up this part of town. They got coffee shops and cute

restaurants there now, so I don't think the man would be able to stand at that intersection

anymore. Or, if he did, certainly not for as long as I saw him standing there. I sometimes

wonder where that man is now.

- JK

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