Tuesday, June 12, 2012

A Retro Pastiche That’s Never Going To Be A Breakaway Pop Hit

While in the waking world I’ve only ever written two songs (Note:  They were bad, and they made me feel bad), I’ve written many, many more songs in my dreams.
Kind of, I guess.
That is to say I’ve had a lot of dreams in which a songs were present, and, so far as I know, they weren’t existing songs that I’ve ever heard before.
Most of the time I don’t really remember anything about them upon waking, other than some vague recollection of the melody or something.
Sometimes, as was the case years ago when I had a dream that there was a movie based on my character Fontaine which featured a song by Queensrÿche on the soundtrack, all I remember is the title (“Cold and Deadly,” in that case).
I often suspect that they aren’t wholly original creations – and even if they were, given the nature of dreams, I doubt that, lyrically, they’d be anything other than a random word salad to conscious ears – but rather a combination of elements of different songs I’ve heard in my life.
After all, as is evidenced by the two songs I’ve written – or would be, if I still had them anywhere and were willing to share them for the world to laugh at if I did – I don’t really have any talent in that area, so I don’t suppose that my unconscious mind is capable of much more than mashing up existing songs.
In any case, the reason I mention all this is that while taking a nap yesterday I had a dream in which there was a song playing on the radio or something, and while I don’t remember any of the details of the dream itself, much of the song actually managed to stick in my head after I woke up, including some random backstory details about the song.
The song I heard in my dream was a cover of a very old song – one that could be considered something of a “standard” – and while I don’t recall who the singer was, it was some semi-contemporary singer or other.  Someone who had once been a musical superstar, but who has since been relegated to having the occasional moderate success.
Further, the song was a considerable departure from his usual style.
Given the odd specificity of those poorly-remembered details, and how much of the song actually stuck in my head, I suspected that rather than being either an original creation of my mind, or even a pieced together mishmash of songs, it was an actual song.
A search of the Internet revealed – as I suspected – that there are several songs that share the title (which is part of the chorus of the song), but I haven't found an exact match in terms of the other lyrics, or even the specific style of the song.
Anyway, here’s what I remember of the song:

And from my point of view
I’m going to keep on
Loving you only
So I’m begging you,
Whatever you do,
Baby, please
Don’t let me be lonely

In terms of the style of the song, I’m not sure what you would call it. 
The line breaks in the way it’s written out above kind of indicate the cadence, though I’m not sure how to call out where specific notes are held (like with the “my” in the first line).
I’m reminded of “Please Come Home for Christmas,” which probably serves as a big part of the basis for the song and its backstory, given that Jon Bon Jovi did a cover of it…
So I don’t know…did I make it up?  Is there some other song that I could be thinking of?  Several songs my brain remixed?

No comments: