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| If I Could Wish Upon A Star © 1995 Emilio Nieto |
| Background |
If I Could Wish Upon A Star is a simple, beautiful ballad written by
Emilio Nieto. Emilio is actively marketing the song to various artists. Call
(219) 677-3536 or (219) 662-9350 with any questions about this song.
Emilio is a rare breed. He has played for a living on the streets Chicago
for over 20 years and around the U.S. from New Orleans to the Pacific
coast for over 30 years.
Emilio was featured in the December 2005 issue of Attache magazine
(copy and manuscript of article below).
As the article attests, for thousands of Chicago train commuters, hearing
Emilio sing a tune and flipping him a tip is as routine as buying the morning
paper.
Emilio was born to be a street musician. He has the moxy to claim his
territory, and the warmth to make every passerby feel safe. He has the
intelligence to debate downtown professionals about politics, and the
street smarts to make South-siders laugh at those same professionals. His
song list is prodigious, seemingly including every popular sing-along from
the '60s to date. He strums a mean guitar and has a rich, soulful baritone
voice. He has the strength to play uninterrupted for hours and be heard
singing for a city block. Above all else, Emilio plays and sings every single
note with honest passion, enabling him to touch listeners no matter how
brief, or how repeated may be their experience of him.
Emilio is a cherished member of the Free Verse family. Al was five years
old when Emilio walked him to school along with Al's classmate, Emilio's
younger brother Loui. And Emilio taught 14-year-old Al his first guitar
chords - a long, long time ago.
Emilio Nieto. Emilio is actively marketing the song to various artists. Call
(219) 677-3536 or (219) 662-9350 with any questions about this song.
Emilio is a rare breed. He has played for a living on the streets Chicago
for over 20 years and around the U.S. from New Orleans to the Pacific
coast for over 30 years.
Emilio was featured in the December 2005 issue of Attache magazine
(copy and manuscript of article below).
As the article attests, for thousands of Chicago train commuters, hearing
Emilio sing a tune and flipping him a tip is as routine as buying the morning
paper.
Emilio was born to be a street musician. He has the moxy to claim his
territory, and the warmth to make every passerby feel safe. He has the
intelligence to debate downtown professionals about politics, and the
street smarts to make South-siders laugh at those same professionals. His
song list is prodigious, seemingly including every popular sing-along from
the '60s to date. He strums a mean guitar and has a rich, soulful baritone
voice. He has the strength to play uninterrupted for hours and be heard
singing for a city block. Above all else, Emilio plays and sings every single
note with honest passion, enabling him to touch listeners no matter how
brief, or how repeated may be their experience of him.
Emilio is a cherished member of the Free Verse family. Al was five years
old when Emilio walked him to school along with Al's classmate, Emilio's
younger brother Loui. And Emilio taught 14-year-old Al his first guitar
chords - a long, long time ago.
| Lyrics |
If I could wish upon a star
I'd wish to be with you
For no matter where you are
Well I'd want to be there too
And if wishing on a star
Could make my dreams come true
You'd love me
Like I love you
And if falling stars above
Could all their secrets tell
They'd talk about this love
That from the sky once fell
And falling on your heart
Held you in its spell
And how you love
Just like I love you
I'd wish to be with you
For no matter where you are
Well I'd want to be there too
And if wishing on a star
Could make my dreams come true
You'd love me
Like I love you
And if falling stars above
Could all their secrets tell
They'd talk about this love
That from the sky once fell
And falling on your heart
Held you in its spell
And how you love
Just like I love you
Wishing on a star
They say won't get you far
And they say that your dreams
Won't come true
But I don't have the time
To pay them any mind
'Cause I'm too busy
Wishing for you
So when time has passed away
And the world is all but through
Well I'll wish that I could stay
Just to spend the end with you
And needless to say
That when my wish was through
You'd love me
Just like I love you
They say won't get you far
And they say that your dreams
Won't come true
But I don't have the time
To pay them any mind
'Cause I'm too busy
Wishing for you
So when time has passed away
And the world is all but through
Well I'll wish that I could stay
Just to spend the end with you
And needless to say
That when my wish was through
You'd love me
Just like I love you
| Article in the December 2005 Issue of Attaché |
| Subtitle |
| What's it like to sing for your supper, to take your chances on the street, to depend on human generosity? |
| Preface |
The brim of Emilio Nieto's cowboy hat brushes my forehead as we bend our heads
together and sing: Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody. Closing our eyes,
we reach for the harmony that belies the words. I got some money and I just got
paid....
together and sing: Another Saturday night and I ain't got nobody. Closing our eyes,
we reach for the harmony that belies the words. I got some money and I just got
paid....
| Manuscript |
Nieto is singing and strumming to an imaginary packed house. I pretend I am in the
shower, with my soap-on-a-rope microphone, or in my car with rolled-up windows.
In reality we are in Chicago, just off Michigan Avenue, in a red granite subway
tunnel, serenading evening commuters who bustle past.
A man stops and sits on his lunch cooler, his back against the wall, sipping from a
cold beer. With his plaster-stained work boots tapping, he calls out the occasional
request. To him, our music is a happy-hour treat, an oasis of nearly free
entertainment between his work-a-day world and the long train ride home.
We finish our song, our voices rolling down the long tunnel, followed by our fan's
solitary applause. A woman in a yellow dress stops in her rush for the train and
drops a dollar in Emilio's open guitar case. A man with a coil of cable over his
shoulder empties change from his pocket. A sharply dressed man from the nearby
Board of Trade stops and digs for his wallet, riffling through twenties and fives and
ones, finally settling on a five before running for his train, tie flapping and cell phone
to his ear.
Don't know much about history, Emilio sings. I join him. Don't know much about
biology. Don't know much about a science book. Don't know much about the
French I took.
I am gleeful, swept up by the childlike fun of singing in a space where my voice
reverberates from the walls. I reach for the harmony and hold if for a phrase-But I
do know that I love you. And I know that if you love me, too-then chicken out and
fall back to the melody-what a wonderful world this would be.
Emilio murmurs encouragement. "You're doing fine, honey," he says. "Let it out."
Occasionally I soar, sounding, in my mind, like a Southern Baptist soloist, in spite of
my Yankee upbringing in a middling voice. As our music resonates down the tunnel,
people smile. But still I falter, unaccustomed to singing in public.
***
I have come to Chicago for this, the chance to perform on the street, to "busk," as
singing for one's supper is called. Emilio is a full-time busker, a man who does well
enough to have the American dream of a suburban house and a two-year-old-Saturn.
A man who, with a few lucky breaks, would be a star.
He strums a chord. Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone, he
sings. I wait for the chorus before I slide in. I've seen fire and I've seen rain. I've
seen sunny days that I thought would never end....
Emilio has been doing this for 20 years. He has a permit and a schedule. If he
changes locations, his fans ask after him. "Where you been, man? We missed you."
At times they even stop to sing along. They show him pictures of their children. A
pair of women sing out the first few phrases of "You've really Got a Hold on Me,"
and Emilio and I sing to their backs as they dance down the corridor to the trains.
As rush hour peaks, so does the attention. People are staring at me intently until
Emilio gives me a nudge-and I realize I'm standing in front of the sing that directs
riders to the trains. My ego, which had started to expand, returns to its rightful size.
"Train to Indiana?" Emilio asks a befuddled family. "This way," he says, pointing
with the neck of his guitar.
I cross my arms, then uncross them, unsure what to do without the prop of a guitar.
Another man stops, leans against the wall, listens, then saunters over, smiles at me,
and drops a couple of bills in the guitar case.
For me this is a lark. I do not depend on the take for my rent, nor do I have dreams
of being a professional singer. My voice is decent, but you wouldn't want to buy
anything I might record. Mine is a voice most people think they have as they look in
the car mirror so they can watch themselves sing along with Aretha or Dolly or Hank.
Emilio's voice, though, is a big, round baritone. He walks into the crowds, makes
eye contact, calls out "thank you" and "God bless" to the ones who give money. He
sees a tired-looking woman and sings especially for her. Under the boardwalk,
down by the sea... on a blanket with my lady, is where I'll be. We sing over the
blare of fire trucks and end-of-day chatter, then more quietly under the
announcements of incoming and outgoing trains. Otherwise, he says, people get mad,
and shower him with dirty looks instead of dollar bills.
Emilio makes more on cold and windy days, he says, perhaps because people feel
sympathy for his frozen feet and fingers. Today it is mild, yet within two hours my
throat is sore and the hardness of the concrete has crept up my legs and into my back.
Emilio, though, is just getting started. At 56, he has arthritis and diabetes, yet he
plays the evening rush hour every day, leaving just in time to make it to his 7 o'clock
church service. He has his own ethics, his own code of conduct.
"I don't want to make eye contact to where they think I'm asking for money," he says.
"If they want to tip me, that's great, but I don't want them to think I'm asking for it."
He has been locked up, in spite of his license, and he has been accosted by crazed
beggars fighting for a spot. There is competition on the streets and in the tunnels,
with performers vying with homeless people for locations that are safe and warm
and generous. Emilio must factor in acoustics, too, and the logistics of parking his
car and lugging his guitar. He shows up in rain and snow, on days when he must
re-tune his guitar between songs as the wood adapts to the weather. He has found
odd things in his case amongst the coins, most notably a cast-off wedding ring.
The wind blows my skirt around my knees and I lift my voice. I pretend I am alone,
that I am part of the background, that my music is coming from the speakers overhead
or invisibly embedded in the walls. I pretend that people wish me well, that they
find me amusing. I open my throat and channel my inner diva, even though I am
unglamorously short and middle-aged. Somewhere in all of this I lose my
inhibitions. I don't care if people approve.
Well, you could have been anything that you wanted to, we sing, and I can tellll....
the way you do the things you do.
My freedom comes from being an imposter, of course. If I relied on this, I would
create a shtick, a persona, like Emilio, with his cowboy hat and his bonhomie. Like
Emilio, I would devise lyrical twists to break the boredom, and perhaps to see who
was listening. I would find the regulars with my eyes, comment on their lovely hats,
their daring ties. I would mug for their babies.
"Don't smile or someone will think you're happy," Emilio calls after a somber
woman, who looks back, grins, and shakes her head, released from her troubles for a
moment.
I rest while Emilio plays a gospel song he wrote. You like the music? Toss in a
dollar. But not from too high. Not from so high that the wind carries your bill onto
the platform. It's too hard to chase. Likewise, to have a drink, even water, means a
trip to the bathroom, and going to the bathroom means time away from singing, and
that costs money.
It is a long four hours before Emilio is ready to stop, before he asks me what last
song I would like to sing with him. I tell him, thinking that for this at least I will
remember the harmony. So we begin, and now, at the end of the evening, with the
last commuters straggling past, the harmony is there, and our entwined voices roll
and echo down the tunnels and into the night, with the trains.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound....*
shower, with my soap-on-a-rope microphone, or in my car with rolled-up windows.
In reality we are in Chicago, just off Michigan Avenue, in a red granite subway
tunnel, serenading evening commuters who bustle past.
A man stops and sits on his lunch cooler, his back against the wall, sipping from a
cold beer. With his plaster-stained work boots tapping, he calls out the occasional
request. To him, our music is a happy-hour treat, an oasis of nearly free
entertainment between his work-a-day world and the long train ride home.
We finish our song, our voices rolling down the long tunnel, followed by our fan's
solitary applause. A woman in a yellow dress stops in her rush for the train and
drops a dollar in Emilio's open guitar case. A man with a coil of cable over his
shoulder empties change from his pocket. A sharply dressed man from the nearby
Board of Trade stops and digs for his wallet, riffling through twenties and fives and
ones, finally settling on a five before running for his train, tie flapping and cell phone
to his ear.
Don't know much about history, Emilio sings. I join him. Don't know much about
biology. Don't know much about a science book. Don't know much about the
French I took.
I am gleeful, swept up by the childlike fun of singing in a space where my voice
reverberates from the walls. I reach for the harmony and hold if for a phrase-But I
do know that I love you. And I know that if you love me, too-then chicken out and
fall back to the melody-what a wonderful world this would be.
Emilio murmurs encouragement. "You're doing fine, honey," he says. "Let it out."
Occasionally I soar, sounding, in my mind, like a Southern Baptist soloist, in spite of
my Yankee upbringing in a middling voice. As our music resonates down the tunnel,
people smile. But still I falter, unaccustomed to singing in public.
***
I have come to Chicago for this, the chance to perform on the street, to "busk," as
singing for one's supper is called. Emilio is a full-time busker, a man who does well
enough to have the American dream of a suburban house and a two-year-old-Saturn.
A man who, with a few lucky breaks, would be a star.
He strums a chord. Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone, he
sings. I wait for the chorus before I slide in. I've seen fire and I've seen rain. I've
seen sunny days that I thought would never end....
Emilio has been doing this for 20 years. He has a permit and a schedule. If he
changes locations, his fans ask after him. "Where you been, man? We missed you."
At times they even stop to sing along. They show him pictures of their children. A
pair of women sing out the first few phrases of "You've really Got a Hold on Me,"
and Emilio and I sing to their backs as they dance down the corridor to the trains.
As rush hour peaks, so does the attention. People are staring at me intently until
Emilio gives me a nudge-and I realize I'm standing in front of the sing that directs
riders to the trains. My ego, which had started to expand, returns to its rightful size.
"Train to Indiana?" Emilio asks a befuddled family. "This way," he says, pointing
with the neck of his guitar.
I cross my arms, then uncross them, unsure what to do without the prop of a guitar.
Another man stops, leans against the wall, listens, then saunters over, smiles at me,
and drops a couple of bills in the guitar case.
For me this is a lark. I do not depend on the take for my rent, nor do I have dreams
of being a professional singer. My voice is decent, but you wouldn't want to buy
anything I might record. Mine is a voice most people think they have as they look in
the car mirror so they can watch themselves sing along with Aretha or Dolly or Hank.
Emilio's voice, though, is a big, round baritone. He walks into the crowds, makes
eye contact, calls out "thank you" and "God bless" to the ones who give money. He
sees a tired-looking woman and sings especially for her. Under the boardwalk,
down by the sea... on a blanket with my lady, is where I'll be. We sing over the
blare of fire trucks and end-of-day chatter, then more quietly under the
announcements of incoming and outgoing trains. Otherwise, he says, people get mad,
and shower him with dirty looks instead of dollar bills.
Emilio makes more on cold and windy days, he says, perhaps because people feel
sympathy for his frozen feet and fingers. Today it is mild, yet within two hours my
throat is sore and the hardness of the concrete has crept up my legs and into my back.
Emilio, though, is just getting started. At 56, he has arthritis and diabetes, yet he
plays the evening rush hour every day, leaving just in time to make it to his 7 o'clock
church service. He has his own ethics, his own code of conduct.
"I don't want to make eye contact to where they think I'm asking for money," he says.
"If they want to tip me, that's great, but I don't want them to think I'm asking for it."
He has been locked up, in spite of his license, and he has been accosted by crazed
beggars fighting for a spot. There is competition on the streets and in the tunnels,
with performers vying with homeless people for locations that are safe and warm
and generous. Emilio must factor in acoustics, too, and the logistics of parking his
car and lugging his guitar. He shows up in rain and snow, on days when he must
re-tune his guitar between songs as the wood adapts to the weather. He has found
odd things in his case amongst the coins, most notably a cast-off wedding ring.
The wind blows my skirt around my knees and I lift my voice. I pretend I am alone,
that I am part of the background, that my music is coming from the speakers overhead
or invisibly embedded in the walls. I pretend that people wish me well, that they
find me amusing. I open my throat and channel my inner diva, even though I am
unglamorously short and middle-aged. Somewhere in all of this I lose my
inhibitions. I don't care if people approve.
Well, you could have been anything that you wanted to, we sing, and I can tellll....
the way you do the things you do.
My freedom comes from being an imposter, of course. If I relied on this, I would
create a shtick, a persona, like Emilio, with his cowboy hat and his bonhomie. Like
Emilio, I would devise lyrical twists to break the boredom, and perhaps to see who
was listening. I would find the regulars with my eyes, comment on their lovely hats,
their daring ties. I would mug for their babies.
"Don't smile or someone will think you're happy," Emilio calls after a somber
woman, who looks back, grins, and shakes her head, released from her troubles for a
moment.
I rest while Emilio plays a gospel song he wrote. You like the music? Toss in a
dollar. But not from too high. Not from so high that the wind carries your bill onto
the platform. It's too hard to chase. Likewise, to have a drink, even water, means a
trip to the bathroom, and going to the bathroom means time away from singing, and
that costs money.
It is a long four hours before Emilio is ready to stop, before he asks me what last
song I would like to sing with him. I tell him, thinking that for this at least I will
remember the harmony. So we begin, and now, at the end of the evening, with the
last commuters straggling past, the harmony is there, and our entwined voices roll
and echo down the tunnels and into the night, with the trains.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound....*
| Emilio Nieto |
| For A Song |
| Author: Janine Latus Photographer: Jeanne Hilary |