Born This Way
We’ve written a hundred songs about the same broken heart. We get ideas in the shower, at super market, in the car, in our sleep, while having sex.
We never feel so high as when we wake up in the morning and listen to the song we wrote the day before and realize it’s as good as we thought it was. And we’re never so bummed as when we wake up and realize it isn’t. But we write another. We know who we are. We are each other.
We overhear conversations in the language of song. You thought we were listening to you but you lost us when you said something in a certain way and we were gone.
Gone to a restroom or a bedroom or a guest room to talk at our phone so we don’t forget what you said when we get home. How perfect it was in the moment spoken. And our eyes widened and our mouth opened.
But you didn’t have a clue when you gave us that notion. And we didn’t mean to be rude. We were just chasing that thing—that universal sentiment in a unique frame.
You’re the waitress at the coffee shop. The flight attendant, The Uber driver spewing life the way you see it. We’re at the counter, in the exit row, in the back seat waiting. Sometimes we don’t even know we’re waiting. But we are. We’ll never stop.
Our antennae are always up. You can’t see them. But they’re there. Ideas are butterflies. Illusive and catchable. If we pay attention they are ours. Priceless. Valuable. If we don’t, they disappear in the blink of an eye. In an inhale or an exhale. In the buzz of a phone. A right on red.
When words and melodies marry and make a union in our soul we can’t rest until we see them through. Sometimes if we’re brave we trot them out for all the world see hoping we move somebody. Anybody. That we change a life. Make a day. Shift the Universe in some small way.
Sometimes a door is slammed in our face, but we knock again and when we least expect it someone says yes. And that one yes negates a thousand nos.
Sometimes we’re behind the biggest hit on the radio but you don’t even know our name. But it’s all good cuz when we hear it blaring from the car next to us on the 405 or the 101 and the driver is screaming the words that came to us in a dream, the high is better than any drug that ever ran through our veins.
We can’t quit. You can't stop a song if it wants out. We can't run. We can't hide. No escape. Why would we try?
It started a long time ago. It revealed itself mysteriously. It doesn’t go away. It’s in our DNA.
It’s a helpless affliction. A welcome addiction.
It’s not a choice we made...
We were born this way.
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Fingers crossed for all the songwriters and music makers who can't-stop-won't-stop...and for putting themselves out there for consideration in the 60th GRAMMY Awards. We may not always catch the gold but no one can say we don't have fun trying.
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