When Paul and I had finished the lead vocal tracking for Hopelessly Lost in Love, I commented that things had gone very smoothly, with a minimum of takes. I thought perhaps I was becoming a more accomplished recording artist, until Paul reminded me that I had been singing the song and he hearing it, “... for as long as I (Paul) can remember.” That is literally the truth. Paul was born in July of 1984. In April of 1985 I was working on an early version of the song in the music room of our first family home. Paul was tearing around the room on his walker (since out-lawed as dangerous, but that’s another topic). In the space of half an hour I had a rough draft of a song. I noticed that I had left the tape recorder on. I first stopped it, then turned it on again to archive a copy of the song. On playback, I discovered that earlier on the tape I had captured a better take of the song than the archive version - so I kept it. But what was even better, the singing and playing was punctuated by shouts from baby Paul, mostly gibberish, but with several clear “da, da’s” - amongst the first he ever said, I think. Right away I knew I had something special, so I took particular care to wrap up the cassette and put it out of harm’s way. I have an mp3 version of the song/baby talk. Should I post it? Let me know.

Over the intervening years I played the song often, and used it in shows done for fun, and in song collections, including in the poetry opera Forever and Now. It is a very upbeat song, and therefore a good climax piece to signal that all is well in the imaginary world - at least until the shit happens (to coin an inelegant phrase). The song has been done in a bunch of different ways; reggae (well, reggae-ish), rock shuffle (with Tony Buchner), hard rock (with Doug Anderson), and even punk! On my 50th birthday, Paul’s band of the time, the Public, surprised me by playing it at one of their concerts. That was way cool!

When the idea came up of replacing poems with songs in the novel, the song was a natural to put in the story at a point where all seemed fine (or fine-ish anyway). The back story is that the book’s musician, Jack, wrote the song in honour; of Jerry’s true blue romance with Heather (straightforwardly), of Gord’s love affair with Elizabeth (warily), and of Jack’s then seemingly pointless pursuit of dream girls (ironically). No re-wording of the lyrics was thought necessary, although the song references the births of a Jane and a Paul - even though having children or not is both an acute and a chronic point in the lives of the characters.

So, what’s the song really about? During my years in the musical wilderness, so to speak, I often set myself challenges about aspects of music that interested me. One early obvious challenge was to write a Three Chord song. Musicians will know what I mean. So I played; A, D, E in a La Bamba-like pattern, only more slowly and without Mexican bounce. Then I sang the first words that came to me. Feeling pretty snug (not to say smug) in my little house with my terrific wife, my two kids, and my beautiful Norman guitar, I imagined the continuance of these good times throughout life - anchored by constancy. A bit of a stretch for somebody then married all of seven years! But it’s not biography, it’s art (or pop music anyway). “Old has-been romance, keeps a rolling on. Baby keeps it easy.” The verse melody then led me to a straightforward set of the chords that are a natural consequence of the first three; F#m, E, D, A “ I keep it strong.” I don’t know how the chorus happened, but the chords are pretty simple too, and easily support the melody; Bm, F#m, G, A. “Time and circumstances change but love remans our one desire. It’s a secret in our hearts. I couldn’t start to tell you why” Then back to the descending set: F#m, E, D, A. “We’re hopelessly lost in love.” Nothing fancy, just sincere. And nearly thirty years later, the condition predicted is still true.

For the novel version, we changed key to G, to facilitate a more countrified or folky or whatever feel. But still in the neighbourhood of soft blues, if you get my drift. We’ll play the song at the Nygard gig on August 17. Come and hear if you’re curious. We hope to post the track on this site real soon.

We (Ray Blumenfeld, Carol Lee, the new marketing person at Bendecido Books, and I) met with Barb of Nygard yesterday regarding a show on August 17. They have a large, fancy facility at Kenaston Common. We picked a spot and went over the mechanics. For this gig we are going to split the show up; some intro songs (including covers) to attract a crowd, then a reading and a song, then a break to chat/sell books/sell clothes, then another readings and song, then another break, then the last reading and song. Spread out like that it will run from 6:30PM to 8:30PM. Despite what I said before, there will not be a fashion show. Pity. Nygard will e-mail blast to its customer data base and we will annoy our prospects one more time. For those interested, we will be bringing our own PA, so we can be all amplified this time. Tentatively, we expect to do the original three readings, with the ‘new’ three songs - being Except My Love For You, Angel of Truth, and Hopelessly Lost in Love.

Paul and I tracked the lead vocals for Hopelessly on the weekend. He will track the harmony vocals this week, as well as any touch ups to the instruments. Mixing and mastering will follow, with a target of posting a finished track on this site before the end of the month.

I just reviewed earlier posts and I notice that I haven’t given the history of Hopelessly Lost in Love. Tomorrow. This afternoon I meet with Doug Anderson to review whether he has the time and inclination to become involved in recording projects that Paul Hodgert is producing for me at his One Friday Music studios - along with me and the rest of the amorphous Meadowlark Orchestra. Here’s hoping.

I went back to the Dubs to reboot my attention to the book and the blog. It’s a sunny Sunday morning and the A. & W. is empty, except for the Muzak - which is C&W not Oldies for some reason. I like Country, but it doesn’t seem a propos here. Well, plus ca change, plus I don’t like it. :>)

Anyway ... the publisher is happy that sales of the novel have reached half of break-even, with the main fall marketing cycle yet to come. McNally Robinson and Chapters are pleasantly surprised with their in-store sales. So, commercially, all is well. Critically, we have good feedback from individual readers, and not so much from at least one public voice. Regardless, we (the publisher, me, the editors) are happy with how things sit, and are excited about carrying out the rest of of the marketing plan. This is easy for me: I get to talk and sing. The people at Bendecido Books (www.bendecidobooks.ca) get to do the work, and deal with my whining! I’ll list the places and dates as we get nearer to the time, but I know for sure that one of the gigs will be a fashion show - with readings and songs. How cool is that! I mean, isn’t it every author’s dream to be on the catwalk? Or near anyway.

Regarding the music, I have a firm commitment from the Producer that we will complete and post ‘Hopelessly Lost in Love’ by the end of July. I look forward to hearing how it is received as a track. We’ve done it twice live and it went down well. However, (I don’t mind saying) the Producer and the Meadowlark Orchestra set the bar pretty high on the first three tracks, or so I gather form the unanimous praise we’ve received. (Life is full of surprises for this late-blooming amateur!) So the recorded version will have to be much more than passable. The last two songs are estimated to be done by, say. mid-September - in time for the fall sales campaign.

For details on how ‘Hopelessly’ was composed, and how and why it and the other songs became incorporated in the novel, see the blog postings for April, 2009. Just click the ‘Apr 2009’ icon to the right of this text.

Bye for now. See you soon, unless you see me first.

Regards,
The luckiest Old Fart west of the Payless.

We’re back from Kate’s wedding - tired, but happy. New blogs soon. Consider that a threat!

BE SURE TO CHECK BLOGS FROM APRIL, MAY AND JUNE FOR THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK AND THE SONGS.