The Song is Love
She heard the tail end of it on the radio in the car as they drove to meet M at his house.
He was driving. He HATED going to M’s house. Hated how proud he was of all the awards. How everything was framed and staged for maximum impression. They were both 2nd rate, or even third rate stars, and sometimes M thought he was Sinatra. Maybe he could’ve passed for the bad years.
There was going to be a crew and an interview. Cameras and recording equipment, much more expensive for a 2 hour shoot than everything he had rented for his last album.
She felt she still hadn’t broken the ice with M. He hoped she never would. M was a notorious charmer and womanizer. Even married, M had more women than P had in his entire active time in the 60’s. Maybe. Well, close, anyways.
She looked it up on her phone and made him listen to it again in full. It was a syrupy-sweet generic love song by another famous 60’s group. One which had led marches, stayed together, and kept their branding solid for the next few decades. He was deeply jealous everytime he heard one of their songs. He was only slightly reassured to know that their songs followed the Pete Seeger model of being more popular in classrooms than on the radio. (Although he winced slightly when he heard the first few bars of any of The Boys songs. Syrupy-sweet music that put another nickel into Green Hat’s bank account. Not his.)
“Do you know this song?”
“Of course. I even see them on tour sometimes,”
“No, I mean, could you play this song . . . if I asked you very nicely?”
Simple chord structure, he could do it in his sleep. She began singing along very softly. He hadn’t heard her sing in over 2 years, and even her voice, out of shape, had an endearing quality. He liked hearing it again. In fact, he loved it. Her voice was this miraculously beautiful thing in his life and for reason he could not explain or identify, he wanted more but couldn’t open his mouth to ask. But as with many things which he loved enough to break his heart over, he couldn’t ask her to sing louder or encourage her. The thought of her voice and the days when they sang together nearly brought tears to his eyes/broke his heart. He stretched his jaw and widened his eyes to avoid crying.
“If you ask very nicely.”
She was humming it in the car, playing it on repeat, trying not to fry his nerves.
===
They arrived, and as usual, M wanted to show them around. The latest thing he was working on. As if he had been trained from an early age to mention the last award and the next project. All his conversations were like that.
The crew was still loading in, there were giant black cables all over the living room floor, indistinguishable from the expensive oriental rug design. Good thing he hadn’t had a drink today.
She was hanging back in a corner of the kitchen, holding the speaker to her ear at a funny angle, trying to find the best acoustics while trying not to sing out fully.
Never one to be upstaged or miss out on anything, M dropped the conversation and was drawn to the tinny noise. M came up behind her and P could tell that she jumped when she felt his hand on her back. That’s a good sign, P thought.
“What’re you singin’, kid?”
She looked scared, but quickly brought the cut back to the beginning with a swipe of her finger. The guitar was so low that you could barely hear it. The first verse was so tentative that she whisper-sang it wide eyed. You couldn’t tell if she was talking to him or performing, but she had a giant smile on her face and used the 2nd person lyric to full effect. Suddenly, it was HE that she was singing to. And his hand was on her arm. P stepped immediately into her line of sight.
M knew the chorus (and so did P) and both joined in right on cue as if this had been one of their very own songs. Her voice rose up in harmony and sounded perfect in the glass atrium of his kitchen, clear as a bell and hitting her berry notes as if she was a reincarnation of the original blonde singer.
She turned to P for the 2nd verse, her outstretched hand finding his and suddenly all was right with the world again. Everything clicked into place, or maybe everything else had fallen away. They were immediately in the pocket, modest though it was. The men found their old harmony and everyone stayed in key. It’s always easier singing along to a well known recording. Everything about her was sparkling and she had created something infectious between them. She brought them back to the music. When the song was over, they all immediately wanted to do it again. They did. And again. Better than sex, better than applause, they were each amazed at the way they sounded and how good it all sounded together. Probably just a trick of the acoustics, or maybe the song itself opened up more sentimentality than they wanted to express. Unbeknownst to them, the enterprising cameraman captured the moment, sparkle and all. It could have gone sour very quickly, the chemistry among them turned to scandal, but the clip that was shown on national tv a few nights later only prompted positive feedback. And WHO WAS THAT GIRL? ARE THEY GOING ON TOUR? WHAT ARE THEY WORKING ON?
After a few more run throughs, they were all smiles. In fact, they had to stop when she began tearing up. As if she had begun listening to her own magic and had gotten carried away with the show. M knew there was some kind of magic passing among them all, and that he was probably just getting the extra sexual energy coming off the couple. He had always tried to ask if she was a girlfriend or lover, but P had growled at him too many times. There was something in the song that brought up something beautiful, something from her childhood, a thankfulness and a sense of responsibility. It was not unlike what M/he had heard being expressed by the fans. It could easily be that. This would make a great recording for the next album; she could be the proxy.
M suggested taking it to the living room, but his piano was encumbered by gear. And the crew suddenly decided there was a schedule to stick to, so all new spontaneous moments were off. She was relieved, knowing that the next steps would suddenly expose her weaknesses. She could sing with P in the car, and sometimes on stage, but when she had to adjust herself to trained expectations, her voice faltered like the singing frog from Bugs Bunny. She couldn’t keep count, she couldn’t stay on key. The voice that was strong alongside a recording, somehow lost its footing//her gears came off the tracks, a dancer without grace.
