Save Big
by
Kitty Allen
Available on Spotify, Pandora Plus, & in most digital music stores.
A medium tempo reggae style instrumental tune composed & performed by Kitty Allen on pedal harp & flute. Band members include Roger Kaplan on keyboard, Keith Richards on bass, Eric Halvorson on drums, & Guy Dedell on percussion.
This mellow tune was inspired by the strange behavior of a former friend. It was originally intended to serve as an acoustic sedative to the increasingly odd mail deliveries arriving at my home address.
I met this friend during graduate school in Boston, where we both ran small brownstone dormitories. After that, we exchanged normal correspondence for years. Then I started receiving mysterious collections of colorful paint samples. These were never explained. Nor did they include actual correspondence, though they did often arrive with simple pencil drawings of human heads curiously adorned with bird beaks rather than noses. The mailings were always delivered with "Postage Due" stamped prominently on the envelope & absolutely no postage attached by the sender. They never included a return address. They also began to arrive more frequently over a period of 3-4 years. Mailings grew in size until boxes were hand delivered to my door. Finally, I completely refused to accept them, confusing the postal employee until I explained the situation. In fact, I had asked for suggestions many times. Always told to prominently label unopened mailings as "Return to Sender," I had done just that. All of the mailings had then been dropped back into a variety of postal mail boxes.
It would be fair to say that I did NOT encourage these mailings.
And for awhile they stopped. Then they started again. But the contents changed. I now received collections of postcards from service stations in Florida. They promised free oil changes, discounted tire alignments, & topping off of my fluids. Multiple cards in unstamped envelopes arrived with no return address. Possibly useful? Not really, since I would have had to drive from Connecticut to Florida to redeem them. And this time they arrived with a message printed in bold.
"SAVE BIG"
EPILOGUE: Well, I never saved big, but I did end the mailings. Having kept all contents of each delivery, I bound them by multiple rubber bands, labeled them prominently with the sender's home address (known from those prior days of normal correspondence & unsurprisingly located in Florida), & boldly marked them "Return to Sender." I hauled everything to the local post office - twice - & off they went. This ended the problem. Having not received a mailed paint sample or Florida oil change postcard since, I now have a new friendship. We visit on a daily basis & we offer each other complete admiration & respect. Her name is Email Junk Folder.
The tune was originally recorded at Star Castle Recording Studio in New Fairfield, CT. It was engineered by Rob Batesole & then mixed by Kitty Allen & Rob Batesole. Now resurrected, it has been remixed & renamed.
© - Kitty Allen