All was well until I hit the end of the verse. I couldn't think the melody right. It sounded like part of the new song in my head, as if its melody had hijacked the old one. Repeated attempts yielded the same results.
Only later, when I'd not only stopped trying to remember but honestly forgot I'd forgotten, did the real melody float back to me.
* * *
This afternoon I read a short poem by Jannie Funster about finding her lucky hat. I found this amusing because, a few years ago, I wrote a whole song that was inspired by the real-life experience of losing a favorite hat and then finding it again. Apparently I'm not the only person who feels the deep emotional impact of such an event.
At any rate, I found I couldn't remember the words past the first line. No problem. All of my lyrics are stored and backed up. But then, after recovering the lyrics, I realized I couldn't recall the middle part of the instrumental break. That's a bigger problem. I never recorded the song or wrote the piano part down.
I won't panic. As happened last night, music tends to find its way back to you as long as you don't force it. Still, there's a lesson here. With 63 songs and counting, I really need to start recording all of our stuff.
6 comments:
I've been concerned about forgetting my songs, too, as I'm not able to sing much anymore. A couple of days ago I discovered that I can use Photo Booth on my Mac to record my songs. Just get them on there so I have a record of them. Better than the old cassette tapes I've used in the past.
Ahhh, my hat has inspired. I am happy to hear!
Lyrics, lyrics come to me.
make my tunes, and effortlessly.
Glad you're backed up, computerwise. I'm finding I'm letting older stuff go now. Bye bye, babies, new babies await.
xo
Yes, record all you stuff.. I'm sure some umpteenth generation of iTunes would like to release it someday and make a fortune ;-)
It's kind of funny, given that you often tell me to write my stuff down. :)
Wish I had back some of the stuff I wrote in the 80s. It was pretty complex rock/fugal stuff. Gone forever, except the motifs.
It's interesting, the differences in attitude toward the lost stuff. I'm with most of you -- I care when I lose it, but not enough to do the work to prevent it from happening again.
I had a songwriter friend who went one up on Jannie and actually threw away old songs he'd kept around, because they were from a part of his life that was over. Weird. I can't imagine doing that with my songs.
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