August ‘21: New Song
“Sense of You”
Prompt: bright stars and blackholes
Submission of Member: Brian C
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This month’s song was based on a prompt submitted by Patron Brian, which was "bright stars and blackholes."
I also managed to sneak in the prompt from my weekly writing group, which was "greatest hits."
I liked the idea of using the phrase "greatest hits" as another way of saying "the same old tired thing" and wanted to do that here - this is definitely a One Big Dark Room song, so come hear me play it live for the first time this coming Tuesday, 8/24 at 9PM EST
This one is Maria-inspired - I wanted to try to write something referential to "Were My Sweetheart to Go..." considering this month is the 10-year anniversary of the release of that album. I've probably mentioned before that the original concept of WMSTG was to do all grief/love songs from someone living to another who had departed this physical plane. I was of course thinking of Maria (though she was alive then), but by the time everything I'd written at that point had been pored over and worked through by the producer, my original concept had all but vanished. (Except "What happens now?" and "All this talk of dreaming...")
Back in those days, I worked at an elementary charter school in Los Feliz, CA, and lived in North Hollywood in a 3 bed/1 bath house with 5+ other people ("Califa"). I would catch a ride in with one of my housemates, and most days Maria would come pick me up in the early afternoon, where we'd listen to albums full blast cruising over the hill into the valley on the 101N, chain-smoking cigarettes, ash in our eyes... We'd always have to stop for more smokes, always, anytime we ever did anything. I smoked a lot in those days with those friends, but never like her, she was the real deal. I'd tease her about her habit, how bad it was for her, how it could kill her. "I'll never have to quit," she said, a slight tug at the corner of her mouth. Like she always knew.
I was originally hired as an administrative assistant for the school, yet much to my chagrin I ended up almost entirely playing hall monitor to barricade against helicopter parents trying to handhold their kids until the last possible moment each morning. (They of course loved to yell at me for this so I understandably didn't last long there.)
After the first bell rang, I often sat in the hallway alone for hours writing lyrics and poetry on pieces of scrap paper, waiting for the moment that I would be free. Since there was so much drama with Maria, sometimes there was a lot to try to work out. I've always done that by writing to myself, always called myself a "compulsive journaler." During that period, we wrote a lot to each other that which we couldn't find the strength to say in person, in our quotidian routine of Hollywood car rides, and homemade Jim Beam and cokes, and watching Walker, Texas Ranger reruns in the converted garage living-room of the band house where I lived then - until the boys would come home, until we'd have to go back to the roles we'd decided to play without each other... or maybe sometimes we'd go somewhere, we'd do something. Maybe there was some special occasion. The special occasions almost always ended in some sort of ruin.
Those days were kind of terrible, but I look at them now and think how charmed they were. So much has changed, yet so much remains the same- I'm still writing bits of things, things I wish I could say to her, things to help me work out how I feel, things to help me remember... the moments fade and slip like little scraps of paper whirring away in a breezeway, lockers on either side, light pouring in from the end of the hall...
Thank you so much for your support!
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