(78) Colours Fly Away
As a, erm, musician -- Goddess, I hate saying and writing that word, because automatically sirens start wailing "Egotism! Self-importance! Professional nature! Hack!" on repeat in my head -- and (gulp) a frequent writer, sometimes you record or write songs and you discard them, and you realize later that it was actually quite good and keep kicking yourself for it and the song stays in your head. I had a song like that. I recorded it two years ago and it was titled "Theme for New Ardennes". It was lacking something and I discarded it, but even then I knew it was almost perfect. It had this stuttering beat that was both gentle and jack-hammering at the same time and moved at about 140-150 bpm if I remember correctly. The music itself sounded like something that you'd play as a lead-in to the slalom or something in the Winter Olympics. It had these two great melodies, one on the surface and one bubbling around underneath serving as the foundation, as a bassier counterpoint, and it sounded so snowy and fresh even though it was something I made with dreadful MIDI files. It should've been the new Swiss or Swedish national anthem. One day I'll re-record it in a superior version, but until then it's going to keep nagging away at me.
Sometimes you also have fragments of a song -- words or music -- and you can never apply them to anything. Other words could be added, but they wouldn't fit -- it'd be too much of an extension and it needs to stay this concise, yet it doesn't work as a song because it seems unfinished somehow, so small that Wire wouldn't have bothered to put it on Pink Flag. For two years I've had these two verses in my head in some slightly altered form or another that I keep writing down over and over. They started out as sentences being applied to a skit and then mutated into part of a story that I discarded before becoming these two verses, slightly altered from time to time but the meaning stays the same. The second verse differs very little from the first, but it differs in a very important way. They're both very simple and conversational but poignant, thoughtful, personal, and telling because they mirror what always seems to happen whenever I've entered a relationship -- that I unwittingly become a mere toy, an eccentric curio in between more important affairs and relationships. I may be valued at the start, but eventually I've seemed to matter nothing more. Desire doesn't wane, but someone else always seems to become more important whenever I seem to make perfect sense with that person, and it's always bothered me to where I keep hoping that I'll never relive it. Of course, it happens yet again and I resent it entirely. I'm not complaining and pitying myself or claiming victimization at all; I'm merely stating that's what usually happens to me and I accept it, even though it's unfortunate.
"Was it wishful thinking that made me presume
I'd serve as more than a supplement of passion?
Was it senseless of me to have never thought
I'd prove to be a casualty of seduction?
If patience could be sought, would you ever learn
to appeciate me? Is it too late?
Was it wishful thinking that made me presume
I'd prove to be more than a supplement of passion to you?
Was it so senseless of me to have never thought
I'd prove to be a casualty of seduction by you?
Did decision-making leave me further prone
To be subjected to potential misuse?"
The verses were inspired by what a friend of mine once said to me: "You'd be perfect to be with in between relationships!" She meant it as a compliment, but it's unwittingly something horrifying. It implies that I'll never be appreciated as more than a toy, that I'll remain "a supplement of passion" and "casualty of seduction" that no-one will ever commit themselves to, no matter how much I desire to be claimed and taken seriously. She's right, and I accept it, but this fragment of a song repeats in my head with constancy and hounds me like a second inferiority complex and I can't help but feel at the very least dismayed, at the worst destroyed.
I wish I could finish the song, but I don't know how it ends. I'm not certain if it swerves around with a better fortune and promise, or if it's doomed to repeat itself again in another slightly different variant. I don't think I can include a refrain, or if I can comment on (much less question) anything further in that refrain, particularly since it's focused on one person. Then again, it might be the same person under different guises and each time it ends with the same sort of kismet, those same lines of doubt, dismay and questioning in the two verses before the cycle repeats anew. Perhaps those verses are the end after all, but I still don't feel fulfilled. Then again, it seems I was never meant to feel fulfilled, even within the bloody lyric, where I could potentially make any situation unfold -- although it would all be untrue.