I’ve always wanted to be a songwriter.
I’ve never known anything about music.
There was a piano in the house growing up
and my mother helped me pick my way through
“All My Loving,” but
if I was good at it
I would have stuck with it.

I’ve been a vocalist for some projects
but “singer” would be kind
and while I could provide lyrics,
the music was beyond me.

Over the pandemic
– the destroyer of worlds –
I used technology to bridge the gap
that my inabilities left me.

I started building very simple loops and drumbeats
– primitive stuff –
and laid vocals on tops.
They were like songs
the way my pieces are like poetry:
funhouse approximations.

It was lonely times.
I had little to do.
I kept using samples.

I said for a while
that I was building demos
for musicians to use to work with me on songs
but that wasn’t true.
I never reached out to anyone
to flesh these pieces out.
I liked the sounds I’d built
and didn’t imagine them
in any other form.

They were simple songs.
I didn’t understand music
how this piece worked with that
or how to make sounds
that weren’t sampled for me
and provided as loops for my use.
I continued to be limited
and I saw that to continue what I was doing
I would have to grow
or stagnate
and stagnation seemed like such an easier path.

So I lost music
and I can’t remember how to play
“All My Loving” anymore.

If I were good,
I would have stuck with it.