Of Course

I got to thinking about music and how I would write with it or about it.. I have had two songs written about me. They were published and appeared on three cd’s. Yep it is something I treasure. Not because they were written about me because they were about me not for me. That’s the difference about poetry and lyrics. Lyrics are usually about not for someone and poetry is usually for someone. At least that’s how I think about it.

I don’t listen to the songs very much anymore. There was a time that they were the majority of my listening. But why I am sharing this today is because the challenge was to use a song to be inspired. It gave me pause to think about my songs.

The first song didn’t become known to me until I had lost contact with the writer for over twenty years. I ran across the song in a store. I was surprised to see the name of my long lost on the cd. I hurried to buy the cd and play it in my car. The final song was word for word my life and my love when I was in college. The only hook was the ending of the song. It was the only part that did not occur in real life.

Listening to that song painted the picture of my youth and the passion that occurred for two young people at a time of free spirit and creativity. He wrote a gentle song and yet anyone could visualize the events as they unfolded. The weakest part of the song was the ending. I felt it was weak because it lost the truth.

The musician and I reconnected later in life. The first time we talked about music I mentioned the store and cd. I coyly asked him about the song and how it might have been me at that time but the ending let me think not.

“Of course it is you is us… As for the ending, it was the only way wrap it up. I couldn’t use the reality there.”

The power of that song is it could have been anyone’s story. It could bring back visions of long ago for any college age student of the late sixties. Those words and my life…hmmm. The power of words is what makes for living and so we write.