The Last Muse

It is such a sad victory to acknowledge defeat. Not for all the wanting, all the wishing, all the determination and regretful resignation – can you will it. Not for all the lying, all the ignorance, all the denial and suppression of ambition – can you feel it. You know it only when it happens. It comes slowly, with elation and pride, then grows in significance and force, before it breaks; washes away with a small watery smile, and leaves you with lingering and futile regrets.

When I said I gave up on my dreams, I did. I do not deny this happened a while ago, and that things have never been the same since. I did not give up art; I did not give up writing. I gave up the songs. I always thought I would say goodbye to them by way of the blog. It would be something akin to a funeral. I was sure, one last time, one more drunken send out, one more sing-along to say goodbye. It had to be absolutely perfect. It would stand as one last and immaculate monument to my music. I would find the perfect lyrics for it and sing them in such a way people would wonder why I ever complained about my voice. And someone would hear me and beg me not to give up; and like any arrogant artist I wouldn’t, because I so badly wanted to be rescued from my sinking ship. But I could never manage it. I couldn’t find the song, and I couldn’t sing it right. So I never got rescued, and I never found that closure.

But today I found the song. And I sung it. And it was… I can say it was perfect, I can say that I finally felt like I had added something to a song by singing it and that I not only enjoyed singing it, but hearing the result – because objectively we know that’s not true, and none of it matters anyway. What matters is it broke a little piece of my own heart to think that I had finally got it right.

So today, I go down with the ship.

My current partner, to use a terribly sterile phrase, who will be the topic of many more blogs to come previously – was once a musician.

And I think I can finally come clean about his music now. All of it. Him, his music, how I feel about it, how I feel about how he feels about it, and my intentions for it. Maybe this might go a way to explaining ‘my musical ambitions’ as he has put it. Maybe this blog might forgo the need to have that conversation, maybe it might finally spark it off.

To be completely honest, and not the least bit melodramatic; I feel that this music thing, between him and me, however small, and even though we never really gave it a chance; was an important journey for me. I think I went through three stages with it; each of which prompted new ideas in my own art. Sovereign hope, dependant promise, and sober acceptance.

I was guilty of Googling him before I even knew him properly. Somewhere in our first conversation he mentioned music and the internet and I may have mentioned this blog. We both searched for each other online. All my results are not yielded by my real name, all 38,800 of his are. I thought he was some sort of celebrity, and in a way he still is. I heard his music for the first time on his MySpace page. I was confronted and confounded by it. So much so that it took me weeks before I ever admitted to knowing. I couldn’t get over how polished and well done it was. It would have been easier to identify with a musical failure like myself. It’s one thing to say that you can sing or play an instrument or that you are or were in a band. It’s something else to meet or exceed expectations about the kind of music one imagines would be produced, and something else again to actually be a talented musician. But, truthfully, and having by chance landed some of the more contrived songs, hearing his voice and the way he sings, to begin with, was a little awkward. Mostly, for me, it wasn’t about the music itself, but the fact that the music existed. That was such a big thing. I couldn’t believe that someone had actually done what I had wanted to do, all by themselves. I was so happy for him, admiring, and it gave me a lot of hope about my own music. It made me realise, with more joy than I ever thought I could summon for it – that I still wanted to do this. That I loved music and I wanted to make music, and above all: that it was possible. I started writing a song, with a lovely stolen melody, and lyrics about how in love with everything I was.

But quickly and inevitably, and in part because of that song, I was in the grips of my own agenda. I don’t like to put it that way, but it is mostly true. A long time ago I realised I could never do this on my own; that I would never have all of what was needed, that I needed someone to sing with, and like it or not, that I would actually prefer to work with someone. In my mind I had this very strong picture of a man on the stage with me, singing and playing piano or guitar. His name was Jed. He looks a lot like Oliver. He was the product of a fairly teenage ideal, too much television, and a psychic disposition. Maybe one day I will tell you about him. And, though I never consciously realised it until a lot later, somehow my boyfriend evoked that image.

But the torment about the music was two-fold. The more I knew about and heard his music the more comfortable I was with it, the more I liked it, and the more I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t successful. It is at this point that I was given the documentary about the music, and I became enamoured with the sound. He was absolutely right when he said that it still sounds like nothing before or since. It was my kind of music. There are tracks I had stuck in my head for days. And a small part of that admiration was, in a very fan-girly way, for the man himself. He can play guitar to deliberately show off that makes your jaw drop, or he can languorously carry a melody on keyboards that absolutely makes the song. And my musical ego saw a bit of itself in his musical ego, and a stupidly enthusiastic, optimistic, slightly selfish little part of me wanted to be part of it.

I wanted him to hear me sing. I wanted him to hear my songs. I wanted to throw caution to the wind and pretend like I was musical and confident and free, and that it didn’t matter what anyone thought. We were a little blind to each other’s musical histories back then. I tried not hint too vigorously about my insecurities with my singing, and I tried even harder not show how much it meant to me whether or not he liked my music. Part of me hoped, as part of me has always hoped, much like the sinking ship metaphor; that my music might actually be something of note. That it might evoke that same disbelief I held about how he’d stopped making music; and somehow what of himself he saw in me would be inspiring. He never really said much. Something about it being cabaret. Which it was. Something, when prompted, about my voice being ‘fine’. Something far out about writing a musical. I wish I could remember the words better. Not that it matters now. For what I was doing there was unfairly scoping him out for future musical ventures.

But the more I sought to do music with him, the more I needed to learn about the music’s course, and the further I delved into his musical history, combined with his regretful but resigned ‘no’s –I came to realise that it could never happen. I tried not to let this show, but I was upset by that. I thought I might have found someone who not only understood what it was to be hurt by music, but that would be the perfect creative compliment to me because they had all that I felt I was missing. I felt like the one person I thought could help make this happen was saying no. And I couldn’t fully understand why. And that was hard.

I didn’t believe him. I didn’t think he meant it. I saw instruments still out in his hallway, his own CDs on his shelves and song lists pinned to the bookshelf; heard him talk about that history gladly and affectionately, heard him pick up a guitar twice, heard him sing quite a few times, busted him listening to his own demos in the car – and that really, really little part of him that didn’t want to give up, resonated with that big part of me that didn’t want either of us to give up either.

Something his band’s pseudo manager said in the documentary really hit home to me. “Music is an adolescent spirit” he said. Maybe we’re both trying to recapture something we grew out of. And yes, I admit, maybe I, in typical paradoxical fashion, was trying to recapture my youth through him – someone who lived as I could not. And I think that maybe he was relying on me to grow up.

We’re going to be English teachers, he and I. Can you believe that? There’s still a part of me that doesn’t get it. And it talks to me in much the same way I imagine it talks to him: “What happened to you man? You were going to be a rock god. You had dreams back then… when did you get so square?”

But it’s over for me in much the same way that it is over for him. What he lost burning himself up doing it, I lost burning myself up about not being able to do it. While he held onto living a dream and how good the music was; I held onto how good the music could have been with all the desperation of not having fulfilled that dream. And we both never had the intention of giving up. We were both writing songs just last year. Songs we thought we would get finished at some undefined point in the future; and never did. Lyrics and melodies that tried to haunt the creative consciousness for a while, but that come no longer.

There’s a… house across the river, but alas, I cannot swim
And a garden of such beauty that the flowers seem to grin
There’s a house, across the river, but alas I cannot swim
I’ll live my life regretting that I never jumped in

There’s a boy, across the river, with short black curly hair
He wants to be my lover and I want to be his peer
There’s a boy, across the river, but alas I cannot swim
And I never will get to, put my arms around him

There’s a life, across the river that was meant for me
Instead I live my life in constant misery
There’s a life, across the river but I do not see
Why I should please those who will never be pleased

There is gold across the river, but I don’t want none
There is gold across the river, but I don’t want none.

Gold is fleeting, gold is fickle, gold is fun
Gold is fleeting, gold is fickle, gold is fun

There is gold across the river, but I don’t want none
I’d rather be dry than held up by a golden gun

Saying work more, earn more, live more; have more fun
Saying work more, earn more, live more; have more fun
Saying work more, earn more, live more; have more fun!

(Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim)