“Sorry about that,” he muttered and sprawled in the opposite direction, so our heads were practically touching.
The slightly curved ends meant more space on each couch, which was exactly why we’d chosen them for our bus. There were narrow end tables behind each end for drinks, with the coffee table in the center used specifically for weed and writing. We’d learned early in our life on the road that one wrong bump could be a cataclysmic disaster for a song we were still in the process of working on. The arguments that had ensued during the rewrite ofFatal Dreamshad been epic and resulted in a three-day standoff between Dash and Ozzy in which they refused to work on their parts of the song until certain words were changed. In an act of ultimate defiance, Johnny had rewritten the whole damned thing, replacing the contentious words with ones neither of them had chosen.
In the end, we’d wound up with a way stronger and more concise song than the one we’d been piecemealing together, ending the silence between Dash and Ozzy when they both agreed that Johnny’s version was the one we needed to run with.
“So um, can I?”
“Huh?” I said, finger still absently scrolling past movies, so lost in memories I’d forgotten to pay attention to what the options were. “Oh yeah, ask away.”
“How’d you write that song?” he blurted.
“Pen and paper.”
He let out a snort that morphed into a chuckle. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”
“Naa, you jumped in with both feet while wearing akick mesign.”
“Never heard it put that way before.”
"Because it’s a line I’ve been fiddling with.”
“For how long?" he asked as I slid the remote his way.
“I’ll talk to you about songwriting until the sun comes up if you want, as long as you find us something to watch.”
“Any specific genre or…”
“Dude, if I had any idea at all, do you think I’d have passed you the remote?”
“I guess not,” he replied and took over scrolling.
When he stopped onProm Night, I settled in to enjoy an old classic.
“You fit in perfectly with this crew, I hope you know that,” I said as he laid the remote on the coffee table.
“I take it you approve of my movie choice?”
“Oh yeah,” I replied. “As for the line, it sorta popped into my head while I was waiting to get discharged from the hospital. Well, what actually popped into my head was jumping in with both feet, blindfolded, but when I really started to think about it, it seemed like I was saying the feet were blindfolded, only feet don’t have eyes, so then I flipped it around to "blindfolded and jumping in with both feet," but something about that still didn’t pack the punch I wanted it to. I played with a few more variants of that one, then started to make notes to myself about what it was I was trying to say.”
“Okay, and what are you trying to say with that?” Kit asked.
“That you’re taking the plunge knowing the consequences will fuck you up.”
“So, akick mesign is you saying they’re doing it already knowing they’ll be kicked in the teeth?”
“Or the feelings.”
“Yeah. Yeah, okay, it can be doing it knowing they’ll bemocked too,” Kit said.
“Exactly.”
“It can be taken a bunch of different ways,” Kit said. “There are all of these images in my head, different results, but born of the same line.”
“Which is what we want,” I explained. “A good song is like an inside joke. Some people are gonna get it, some people are gonna scratch their heads, some are going to wonder about the phrasing and try to pick apart every word, and some are gonna walk away disappointed because they didn’t get it. A great song, however, is like ripples of wildfire, hitting people in different ways, sparking thought, conversation, and debate, but most of all, forging connections. There’s nothing wrong with a good song; those are fun, but it’s great songs that create legacies.”
“Kinda brings me back to my original question,” Kit said.
“How’d I write the song?” I asked, wanting to be certain I was following the conversation correctly since there was still a dull throbbing in my head that could be distracting. “That one specifically started with the chords for the chorus. It was just me trying to give a particular sound to what I felt at the time. By the time I smoothed it out, I had some words to go with it. Did a bit of brainstorming and some self-analysis, tweaked the chorus, and branched out into the verses. Those took rearranging and fine-tuning before I could work on the intro, bridge, and exit to bring the whole thing together. After that came a fuckton of polishing before I brought it to the table.”