One of the panels I was on at Confusion was on song writing. We agreed that you can start anywhere, chords, tune, a scrap of lyric or an idea and build from there.

I most commonly go from chords to tune to lyric, but sometimes it's a lyric first and sometimes a tune.

We concluded that there's no wrong way to write a song, so I promptly wrote a song about the wrong ways to write a song: make it too long, use an unsingable tune, etc.

There's also lots of ways to dance, and lots of conventions regarding who you can dance with.

At night-clubs like the Geezer Hour at Live, you bring a partner and that's who you dance with. At a square or contra dance, you will cycle through all the available partners in strict rotation. At the dance clubs like Fred Astaire or the Swing Dance at Riverside Arts Center in Ypsi, you might bring a partner, but you expect to "work the room" and dance with anyone who isn't being already being danced with. Sometimes I dance with women significantly older than I and sometimes I dance with college kids.

The Fred Astaire studio where I take dancing lessons had a big dance on Valentine's Day. I did not dance every dance, nor did I dance with every woman who was there, but I did a lot of dancing and had a lot of fun.

By the end of the dance, I was tired and wired and didn't want the night to end and needed to go home and enjoy my alone time.

I've been learning the Tango, so to extend my Valentine's Day dance high, I decided to compose a Tango. Step One was to do a little research on just what a proper Tango rhythm is, what are common key signatures and such.

Finding a site with an audio click-track made finding a rhythm quick and easy. Beating that rhythm into my head hard enough that I could play it without reverting to a standard folk/rock rhythm took a bit longer.

Tangos tend to be in minor keys, so I borrowed part of the chord progression from the jazz/blues classic Cry me a River.

Working from chords to tune to lyrics took several days. It hasn't solidified, but I'm mostly happy with it.

I recorded it on my phone and took it to Fred Astaire to show to the tango instructor. The conclusion is that it's a fine song, but the pattern I used is not modern Tango, it's a style called "milonga", which is not what people dance to today.

To make everyone's day more surreal, the word "milonga" is what the Latin Dance community calls a tango dance party where they dance to music that's not in the milonga style.