This of course is the title song, so to speak, for the novel. When exactly it was written is a bit of a mystery. Very unusually for me, I can’t find a record of its date of original composition. The copy I have is dated August, 2001. At that time the song was titled ‘I’m Losing Everything’ (ILE). It formed part of what I called ‘a poetry musical’. The poetry musical consisted of six poems and six songs. Although each song or poem was supposed to stand on its own, together they were to tell a story. The musical was called ‘Forever and Now’ (FAN). All the poems were ‘purpose written’ for the musical, and all but two of the songs. One of the pre-existing songs was ‘Hopelessly Lost on Love’ (HLIL), which also features in the novel. It was written a long time ago in unusual circumstances. But I’ll talk about that in a later entry. Anyway, HLIL is a straightforward song about undying love, so it fit perfectly into the middle of the FAN story-line. In FAN the hero guy meets a girl, falls for her, marries her and wallows in joy, but then screws up and loses his lover/wife. When he realizes where he’s at, he understands and sings the other pre-existing song, ILE, because that he is in fact Losing Everything.

The first draft of my first novel was called ‘Meadowlark’, for reasons that will be clear to those that read the novel. The draft also contained poems placed at the end of certain chapters. Again, these poems were to stand on their own, but were also to advance understanding of the book. Also, here and there in the text, reference was made to old popular songs rolling around in the heads of the characters. Several people, including my wife Pat, pointed out a few things:

1. Be the verse good or bad, novel reader soften just skim over occasional poems, or skip them entirely. Besides, poetry is a different read than prose, so unless the poems are (prosaically) overly straightforward, they are counter-productive in the modern world, and
2. You need to get permission to mention or quote from published song lyrics. This is a lot of bother and costs money, and
3. ‘Meadowlark’ is a lame title.

So, as part of the high level aesthetic editing process overseen by author Wayne Tefs, I decided to re-tool by replacing the poems with the lyrics of songs written by one of the character, Jack Lovell, who was already drawn as a musician. Song lyrics are, rightfully, usually simpler than serious poetry - so more inclined to be read and absorbed. This change led to re-writing the book so that the characters remember words and music written by Jack and performed, back in the day, by his garage band. That construction worked way better! By co-incidence only explainable by sublime intervention, I was at that very time in the midst of an originally unrelated project to record a CD of six or seven songs, with the arranging and performance assistance of the CD’s producer, my son Paul Hodgert, and a few of his and my friends. I consulted all the editors and the publisher with the idea of adapting the CD project so that we would record the songs referred to in the book - and in some way relate the book and the music to one another. They displayed the imagination and flexibility (a big part of why I signed with Bendecido) to see that this was not only a neat new artistic idea, but could really power the marketing (oh, oh, business!).

Last and most, what new title now worked for the novel? The song ‘I’m Losing Everything’ was renamed ‘Except My Love For You’ to more perfectly reflect the theme of the book. This became the title of the novel. It’s unusual, but we think in a neat Hodgert/Bendecido way. I hope you agree and that you enjoy the book and the music. Ciao for now.