My Dead Boyfriend

No, I didn’t lose him. I never knew him. But I know his music, and that’s why I call him “My Dead Boyfriend.”

Today is the deathday of Ralph Vaughan Williams. The 50th anniversary of his death. Happy Deathday to you, Ralph! He was born October 12, 1872 and died August 26, 1958. I was born 100 years too late. He was a kind, fine English gentleman and couldn’t stand when anyone pronounced his name “Ralllllllph.” It’s pronounced “Rafe” like “safe.”

If not an amorous relationship, I think we would have at least been very good friends. In fact, when it’s my turn to be a ghost, I intend to seek his friendship and thank him for his music. Ghost of Ralph. Ghost of Kristen.

But I must say, even in life, I usually don’t seek out musician boyfriends. I want to eat. No, no, no – just kidding. But I do find I’m rather intrigued by men who are expert in what I am not. I am not a competitive person and do not welcome any potential for competition in a relationship. I believe a true gentleman would want his woman to shine and be thrilled at her brilliance, just as a true lady would intend for her man.

And on the subject of amorous thinking, Halloween used to be about romance, believe it or not. Traditions have trickled down over the centuries from the British Isles, crossing the sea to early America – from Druid priests foretelling the future on the eve of Samhain (“summer’s end”), to Scottish and Irish young adults making predictions about their future loves. Druids cast cats into the fire; their posterity played divining games and rituals with cabbages, nuts, apples, wet “sarks” (petticoats), “luggies” (bowls) and so forth.

I’m OK with cabbage stalks and nuts, but not dead cats. (I never tell my cat, Molly, about this part of Halloween, although she could do her fair share of mice entrail-reading.) Halloween greeting cards from earlier last century had these prediction symbols on them and scenes of courting. Many showed a girl sitting in front of a mirror at midnight (sometimes cutting or eating an apple) and an apparition of her future love appearing behind her shoulder. Personally, I think it a shame that these charming historical symbols are mostly lost in our modern Halloween celebrations. Let’s bring it back! Go give someone a love note and a cabbage when October rolls around.

My love note to Ghost of Ralph is in my dedication of “Ghost of John – Dead Composers Version” to him and Johann (Sebastian Bach), my two favorite dead composers. (Johann I don’t claim as a dead boyfriend – he’s too out of my league.) Were I in England, I would place a copy of the score and maybe a cabbage at Ralph’s grave in Westminster Abbey – if they’d let me. Or maybe a little nut. Two little nuts, from the old tradition of “nutcrack night.” That wouldn’t be as ostentatious.

My favorite works of Vaughan Williams are:

- Five Variants on Dives and Lazarus
- Variations on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
- Oboe Concerto
- The Lark Ascending

Sublime, surreal, profound, achingly lovely.

So today I’m in the middle of entering and perfecting the MIDI strings for “Flappy Bat” – one of the Halloween Carols due to come out on the full-length CD and sheet music book next year. It’s a special day with Ralph’s ghost haunting his fans and girlfriends. Maybe if I eat an apple in front of the mirror at midnight …



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For either Ralph or Halloween, here are some books I like very much …

Paul Holmes, The Illustrated Lives of Great Composers: Vaughan Williams, Omnibus Press, 1997.

Lesley Pratt Bannatyne, Halloween: An American Holiday, An American History, Facts on File, 1990/ Pelican Publishing, 1998.

Jack Santino, The Hallowed Eve: Dimensions of Culture in a Calendar Festival in Northern Ireland, The University Press of Kentucky, 1998.

Lisa Morton, The Halloween Encyclopedia, McFarland and Company, 2003.