You will meet her in the quiet shaded park that is part of the library, she is sitting on a bench reading a science fiction anthology and you have sat down on a bench facing her, reading your phone. She doesn’t laugh at your dumb joke about robots and spaceships, just replies that science fiction is really about the present, not the future, which is what you’ve always thought, too. Perhaps she is as hungry for conversation as you, maybe she recognizes that you live alone and have only a small circle of friends you only see on Zoom nowadays, heads talking on screens, lit by monitor glow and far off TV glares.
The coffee you will order at the café across the avenue from the library is watery, and the barista who can’t be more than 20 has his hair in a bun that stretches from the top of his head on the left side over his ear, and you think about making a joke to her that he looks like a lopsided pine cone, but think better of it because you remember you really don’t know her yet. So you say that she looks better out of a mask and she smiles, or at least her eyes do, and the two of you stand outside on the sidewalk sipping your coffee and talking about Isaac Asimov and Sri Lanka.
You will choose your red shirt a few days later because you think it makes you look slimmer, after you place your laptop on the side of your desk and angle it so it catches your acoustic guitar in the corner of your room by your bed under the tapestry you got in Bolivia last summer in the background, because you think it makes you look different and interesting. When you talk to her on the screen she laughs when you joke that people are getting pretty good at Zoom dates.
She will answer your text the next day with a “sure” when you tell her you had a great time with her in what you call videoland and would love to see her in person, maybe outside at a bar somewhere, and you can’t tell if that means ‘I guess whatever, why not’ or ‘yes, me too I was hoping you’d say that’ but you decide it doesn’t matter and you try and stop thinking about it. You will meet her in the side garden of a pub a few blocks from your house; you will sit across from her at a green iron table under a plastic umbrella; you will both order garlic fries and beer, and she will then order a gin and tonic, which you will think is fun even though you keep drinking beer.
The first sex you will have in your apartment later will be awkward, the fumbling at the clothes, the rush to pleasure, and afterward you will lie on the bed breathing, and you will wonder if you would have ended up here on your bed with her if things were normal with the world, or if she is yearning for touch and closeness and the feeling of skin trailing against skin the same way you are.
That will happen more in the weeks after that, the sex less awkward, the lying in bed afterwards a little less silent, she asks about your Bolivian tapestry and you tell her the story of the alleyway in La Paz under the cable car that stretches over the city’s rooftops, the older woman who wanted 50 dollars for it, then 40, then fine, 35 dollars. She tells you about the summer in Rome where she got gelato in a stand by a beautiful fountain.
You will meet her brother, the three of you sitting at another green iron table outside at another bar that is different but looks the same as the one where you met her, and he will call you ‘bro’ and bring you his favorite beer, and then again, and again, and you will notice she looks distracted and annoyed that he is trying so hard to impress you, or maybe it’s because of something else.
Then there will be the night in your apartment where you sit on the toilet seat staring at the inside of your bathroom door, wondering how you got there, and you emerge to her sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands covering her face, crying. She will tell you need to get help, and you sit on the bed next to her and ask what happened and she moves away, and you will tell her you need her.
Still she will agree to go with you to a concert by her brother’s friend’s band, and you will remember standing outside the club on the sidewalk, noticing your hand gripping her wrist, tightly, and you let go and she touches your cheek, and shakes her head slightly as if to say you poor thing, maybe, and she turns and walks back through the crowd inside, and you stand on the sidewalk listening to conversations around you and walk home, alone.
And some days later you will watch as she looks at you, eyes watery, as she rolls up the window of the taxi outside your apartment and it drives away. You will climb upstairs to your apartment and sit on your bed, cradling your guitar, thinking you should write a song about her, and about everything, but only listening to the dead strings against the neck, the sound of tires against wet pavement outside, the sound of your upstairs neighbor watching TV filtered through the pipes in the bathroom.
----------------------------------------------------------
###
I'm not totally happy with either the production or the story here....but both because I seem to be diving into the production of each song AND because I'm insisting on writing a short story to go with every song (AND because my power was out for 6 days here! See my last song "power lines"....!), these are taking quite a while and it's time to move on and tweak further later, maybe. In particular the transition to the middle "King Crimson section" (ha) doesn't feel right, and the story didn't quite end up where I wanted. But....time to call these done for now.
Write a song about her hair
make sure you put in there
the way it fell over her eyes
whenever you wanted to find
someone to look inside
that's in the second or third line
Make sure to put in harmony
for the way and you and she
wrapped together in your mind
You can leave out all the sorry's
the avoiding of tomorrows
the wondering will it last
you may want to sing about
the things that you left out
since it all happened so fast
Write a verse about her smile
about its subtle curve
how desire burned you so
Leave out the part where she did say
that she'd be gone away
the better for your nerves
Make sure to write about the look
when she rolled up the window
and left you where you stood
Maybe you misremember
maybe it wasn't ever
the way that the song goes
Still you sing about it all, sing about it all
sing about her
You may want to sing about
the things that you left out
since it all happened so fast
Maybe you misremember
maybe it wasn't ever
the way that the song goes
And as the song draws to a close
try and capture those
moments of impeccable daydream
wit the future spread above
you felt her dripping love
it made you want to sing-
La la la la la la la
la la la la la la
la la la la la.....
@williamjames Feb 2022
The droning music fits the feeling perfectly. Man, you really crafted a nice story here, it could use some refining but in context of fawm this is simply awesome!
@thedutchwidows Feb 2022
Not sure how I missed this one. Has a lovely, lilting feel to it. I really like how the song and story fit together on this one; you can taste the melancholy and nostalgia in the song, which given the story, is spot on.
It's an ambitious thing you're shooting for this year, and it is to your immense credit that you are nailing it!
@elainedimasi Feb 2022
Very neat and different. I think this is the best approach to a meta that I've seen. Really like this lyric and the whole package it was delivered with.
@unkept Feb 2022
Really enjoy the contrast between the sounds you chose, and the idea of story writing with your songwriting is really cool. The break was a great surprise. Well done!
@pfoo Feb 2022
I like the industrial sounding drums right away. Cool sound choices. Writing the story then the song seems like a lot of work, but this was really creative - and knowing the story makes hearing the song a different experience than without it, obviously. I love this all around!
@bachelorb Feb 2022
I like the “industrial steampunk “ vibe to the rhythm. You and several others have my mind swimming about my approach to music. I’m beginning to think all songs should begin with a story instead of a “lick” (....although you may be doing it the other way around....)
That interlude was great!!
@wolfkier Feb 2022
There's a real strawberry feilds feel to this which makes it easy to listen to... and it shifts gears so smoothly, with the melodic cadences and harmonies.
You and MrBlitz really ought to do a collab album that ends popular music as we know it. :)
Really enjoyed my listen. Well done.
@andybalham Feb 2022
I really liked the overall feel for this, so different. Very well performed too. A most enjoyable listen.
@fonte Feb 2022
Oh man I LOVE this! Love the grungy vibe. And the harmonies are very cool. Great overall vibe. Almost 60s feel but crossed with some modern elements.