Penny Rene: April 2010 Archives
It has always bothered me that no one has ever written a song about me. Considering how many musicians I have known over the years, one would think I could be so lucky. Possibly, just maybe, I have inspired some songs. Or at least I know I was regularly present in certain people's lives when they were writing music. There's that.
I do have one CD filled with songs that were written during a tumultuous time in my life and those songs are written by the person who was most involved in my strife. That's code for "We were sleeping together." Unfortunately, those songs are without lyric. Or as I think of them - without a damn explanation.
Perhaps I defy words.
Or perhaps I was just not all that interesting to any of these people. That thought, of course, makes me slightly sad.
Back when I was writing songs myself, I was inspired by scores of people, mostly men, that I knew. There are pages. Files. Snippets of juicy snapshots filed on my computer.
Truth be known, I long to have a visual art show one day where I pair the lyrics of about 40 songs with 40 photographs or other mixed media to create a virtual trip down memory lane for myself. I'd invite those 40 people and say nothing more than "You inspired me." Then, I sit back and watch them attempt to piece it together.
It reminds me of a lovely song, which I didn't write.
This ain't about the things I've done
Where I've been or what I won
Stand on your corner a thousand time
Lose what I got keep what I find
It's about you
It's about you
This ain't about the things you say
Or how you make me feel this way
Stand on your corner a thousand time
Lose what I got keep what I find
It's about you
It's about you
I've also thought I could title the works according to the 1st memory I have of the relationship. For example:
The 2001 the Vanderbilt University Professor Who Cheated On Me
Candy Cane Tree
Spoke My Sentences Before I Did
Smelly Wallet
Do you ever wonder who all those love songs on iTunes are about? Do you question what's going on in "Happily Married" Sting's life when he writes of loneliness? Do you put your hands on the dash of your car and pray to God you can time travel for just a moment to that place when music filled all the gaps?
I think about this sometimes because what I miss most about my old life, the life where I hung around all those tortured musicians is the conversations. When I say I miss Entertainment, what I really mean is that I miss the kinds of personalities who pondered the things that I do. The people who are unashamed of their heartache and wear it like a badge. People who take dots on a page and mold them into something that blurs all the edges of a bad day. I miss people who aren't afraid of what anyone thinks, especially people who claim to love them.
My art show would make good conversations because it would turn the tables. I could once again wave away smoke from cigarettes, holding a drink in my right hand as if it is always there, like a favorite ring. I would make sure the lights were dim, the music just loud enough provoke closeness. And all my muses could smile politely... and wonder.