Maybe (A Protest Song)
home video + liner notes.
Happy February! I wrote a new song!
Here’s a video I filmed last night. Sometimes I write ‘last night’ for the cool factor. This time I literally filmed it last night. I’m not the in-advance gal I used to be. I added the captions this morning, imagine. Maybe if I’d had more time I could have figured out how to split the sentences in a more logical way. Ah well, here’s the song. And the backstory below…
Tuesday morning I was walking home after dropping off my 3 year-old Milo at his new nursery. Let’s say 9.15am. The idea came to me, uninvited. Maybe it was the new route I took, quiet, downhill. Or the hard rain falling down on me (too windy for an umbrella). I recorded a little voice note which I could barely decipher when I got home, what with all that weather raging in the background. Sat down with a turmeric tea (bad purchase, turning all our mugs yellow) (also the carpet where I spilt some). By 10.30am the song was finished. I’ve only changed a few words since. Maybe it was born perfect or maybe I’m lazy. The speed of the writing only strikes me in contrast to the novel I’m spending most of my hours on, which seems to be moving at tortoise pace. Slow and steady wins the day? Maybe the song is a foolish hare. Either way, I’m sure the songwriting deprivation I’m experiencing due to the novel sucking up all my words was incentivising. Nothing like not being supposed to do something to make you want do it.
A couple days earlier Milo saw the album cover of Blonde and Blonde on the shelf, albeit sideways, and asked: “Is that you mama?” (I almost said yes.) I’ve been on a reawakened Dylan trip since finally watching A Complete Unknown last Saturday. We took friends to an 11am screening and ate an obscene amount of popcorn. I have to tell you, I greatly enjoyed it! Especially the songs… I heard lyrics in completely new ways, which, I guess, is the beauty of Dylan’s writing. How had I never considered that the mystery tramp and Napoleon in red mentioned in Like a Rolling Stone were self-referential? Maybe that’s what happens when you’ve heard something consistently since childhood. Somehow the film made me listen through fresh ears.
My old friend and hero David Herman Dune (welcome to Substack!) has written in depth about the movie itself. I’m more intrigued by the ripples it spread through the world — and inside of me. I’m delighted by the knowledge that “I'm literally Joan Baez right now” has become TikTok phraseology for toxic relationships. Or that Timothée Chalamet’s excellent appearance on SNL sent the original version of Tomorrow Is A Long Time into the charts for the first time. Dylan must be laughing. I love that song — for many years it was accidentally saved in my iTunes library as Tomorrow Is A Long Place. I thought the title was just Dylan being Dylan. Anyway, for fear of this turning into a full on Zimmerman Substack, especially after last month’s emotional Blood On The Tracks offering, let’s just say the movie made me feel like writing a song and no doubt also influenced both style and subject matter of the song that emerged (not that my songs haven’t always been Dylan-inspired…) (Should I try to squeeze in the tidbit about going to a gig the night we watched the film and meeting the actor who played Dylan’s manager? Probably irrelevant.)
When I first started this Substack (over 3 years ago!) one of the selfish aims was the force myself to write, to make new work regularly, to share it in a less precious way. There’s no denying that the OMG-it’s-almost-February-what-the-F-am-I-going-to-do-for-Substack-this-month feeling probably contributed to my need to write this song. Here’s to self-imposed deadlines! Doesn’t always work, but somehow in combination with Dylan and walking and weather and increasingly worrying world events punctuating my days, something clicked. A confluence of events. (Any excuse to use that lovely phrase!) I’m setting myself up for failure here. To clarify: I’m not suggesting the song is any good!! I’m just fascinated by the fact it got written at all. Despite my not being in the zone. Not thinking in rhyme. Not putting in the time. Lost temporarily to prose. It was an unexpected surprise. For me.
LOVE.
Simply wonderful, as unbidden inspirations often are.