In the spirit of wabi-sabi, I’m thinking about using “ba-dee-ya” as a placeholder for my unfinished content. I have some deadlines that I won’t make and, rather than commenting out entire sections of text, I think I’ll include what I can, using “ba-dee-ya” where there’s more to come.
Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire passed away this week. I’ve been singing the song, September, for days now. Great song. It sounds a tad unfinished, with the “ba-dee-ya” in the chorus, but it’s still a great song. And I sing it. And dance to it.
I read an interview with one the songwriters, Allee Willis. She said that Maurice would use “ba-dee-ya” often as a placeholder for lyrics until the lyrics were finished. In the case of September, Maurice was good to go with keeping all the “ba-dee-yas” in place. It was not only good enough, it was the right fit.
Sometimes I need a ba-dee-ya rather than anything polished. To paraphrase Allee, I shouldn’t ever let my text get in the way of stating something important. Time to create a September-ipsum.
