Story behind the Song – Dancing on the Rock

I’ve been fortunate to visit some of the world’s greatest art museums – the Louvre in Paris, the Prado in Madrid, and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, as well as several others.  I’ve wondered through the halls of these great collections and viewed countless works of art by untold numbers of painters.  I’ve listened to guides explain how the light, perspective, texture, or color in a particular painting makes it a “masterpiece”.  These painting are each very special and rare, and I’m lucky to have been able to view them.

Unfortunately, I just don’t get it.  To me, most art – especially paintings - is quite boring and fails to capture my interest.  I’ve seen thousands of great works, and I want to be impressed – I really do.  I know I’m missing out on something significant, and as a musician I certainly respect the work and the inspiration that must have motivated their creators.  But, no matter how much I stare at the Mona Lisa or Monet’s Water Lily paintings, they are just static pictures that, if I must be honest, simply don’t impress me.

I’m not completely a lost cause, however.  There are a (very small) handful of paintings that have touched me on some level.  A few that come immediately to mind are The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo’s work in the Sistine Chapel, Lion’s Gate by Alexei Butirskiy, and a picture whose name escapes me by American landscape artist Frederick Edwin Church.

Another picture that I would add to that list is La Chateau des Pyrenees by Rene Magritte.  The painting depicts a large rock hovering over ocean waves that are crashing against the shoreline, and on the top of the rock is a castle.  I don’t know what Magritte’s intentions were, but to me the painting evokes the feeling of a free spirit, and a lack of inhibition.  It is a very positive, happy feeling, and one that suggests no limits, only possibilities.  The vision of this picture was stuck in my head one day as I was sitting at the piano at my parent’s house, mindlessly playing around on the piano.  I was playing with a lot of energy, and I began to visualize children in the picture, dancing and playing on the rock.  They were happy, carefree, and full of life.  I continued to play, and focused on the image I had created, and over the course of several minutes, the main themes from Dancing on the Rock began to emerge.

 Now that the song has been written and recorded, it continues to be one of my favorites.  I like the melody, the energy, and the rhythm, all of which are very positive and feel like they are propelling you forward.  Likewise, it is fun to play, and when I sit down for a quick five-minute piano “fix”, Dancing on the Rock is often the song of choice.

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