Dani Joy Music

Beautiful Strange World
What I want to express first about this song is how incredible the musical instrumentation is that Daniel wrote. This started as a poem set to a 12 bar blues. It was lacking so much depth, but Daniel Ho heard something different. He heard something that’s never been done, completely new, completely different, un-categorizable. The piano parts are of particular Beauty to me. I am just captivated by the way the notes interact with each other. Not only that, but Daniel played around the vocals so perfectly, mimicking my timing on some sections, and creating a classic sounding counter-point to others. I am so blown away by his treatment of this poem. Just breathtaking.
The poem is something I started working on a couple years ago. I remember singing the first verse over and over, out in the desert in New Mexico, trying to decide where the lyrics were going. Then I rewrote the first verse from “We live in a Strange Strange World” to “We live in a Beautiful Place”. I liked them both, because they are both true. The word “Strange” can mean so many things. It’s a universal word, it can be interpreted however the listener wishes, no matter their political/religious views. It’s something we can all agree on.
I wanted to convey that the singer begins with a universal thought; We live in a Strange world. Then she reminds the listener to appreciate what we DO have, a Beautiful Place, even amidst the Strange. On verse 3, she empathizes with the listener that life is hard sometimes, allowing the listener to feel a little sorry for themselves. That’s when she switches the script and preaches about not taking the Beautiful world for granted; “Not always easy, sometimes it’s hard to imagine that we take for granted this beautiful place in this strange world.”
By the next verse she’s starting to be more transparent, vulnerable to admit that even she doesn’t always appreciate this Beautiful place and her place within it. In the last verse, all the sentiments are blended together, ending with her omission that her own perspective needs a shift, and showing how everything is connected. Practice what you preach. Full circle.