Revisiting old tunes

I started writing a song a few years back about two desperate, broken people in a difficult relationship. It’s about the kind of relationship where both the man and woman know isn’t right but it seems to temporarily satisfy a hole they are both feeling in their lives. The song is written from the man’s point of view and begins with his remembering some of the early days of their time together…

Oh I know everything and more about you

Talked for miles on empty roads and highways

Kept the light on by our bed, lock it all up in my head

But there’s more to you than you would ever say

…

Spent a long night giving all it was we had

Let what I knew in my heart get swept away

Your red dress set on the nightstand, put your heavy trust in my hand

Let our love say everything we had to say

My wife would probably appreciate me noting right now that this song isn’t autobiographical. She and I are certainly broken people, but we love each other very much.

I digress. The hook isn’t finished, partly because I’m really bad at writing melodies, but the idea is that he has this recurring dream that he’d never met this woman at all. Sometimes I wonder about the things that didn’t work out. If I could wave a magic wand, would I have certain people and the hardest parts of my past erased from my memory or not? I don’t think so, but it’s an interesting thing to consider.

And there’s nothing that I seem to just forget

Not the hardest rain or shine, your heart beating next to mine

And the dreams I have that we had never met

Yeah these dreams I have that we had never met

I don’t know why, but there is something about this song that keeps bringing me back to it. It’s like I know the two characters, and I know how it all is going to end. I haven’t finished the song yet because even though I know the relationship collapses, I’m unsure of where these two are when they reach their own, individual ends. Are they thinking about each other? Have they long since forgotten and moved on? Did they ever find peace?

I’m enjoying revisiting an old tune. I bet you have a project or a song or a passion that has been on the backburner so long that you almost forgot it was there. Maybe it’s time to light up the stove and bring that thing back to the front.