It’s Not Over While the Thin Lady Sings

I came home yesterday afternoon and found a bursting-with-pride email from friend Wen containing a Youtube link to this:

 

 When I clicked on it, I felt pretty damn proud myself.

I got my first guitar at 17. Within a week, I had mastered three major chords and written my first song. I can’t remember it now, but since one of my three chords was A minor, it was probably some sort of angsty adolescent lament about unrequited love, an emotional state that plagued my teenage years due to the presence in my science class of a boy who could have modeled Calvin Klein underwear, if they’d had those kind of ads back then.

My musical career would have ended there if not for the enthusiastic encouragement of my friends, none of whom had learned to play the guitar yet and therefore had no idea of how remedial my melodious efforts were.  Falling victim to their encouragement, I imagined a glorious future as the next Gordon Lightfoot. In pursuit of this goal, I learned three more chords and set out to write the great Canadian folk song.

Twelve years later, I had eight more chords, a vast repertoire of crap, four songs that seemed halfway decent, and enough money saved to make a demo tape. I hired a producer and three session musicians, primarily on the basis of their willingness to work between midnight and four in the morning, the cheapest studio rental time available. I couldn’t afford a vocalist, so sang the songs myself, which would have been a disaster if the studio technician hadn’t been a special effects wizard on the sound board.

My still supportive friends were impressed with the results, even though by then, many of them had actually learned to play the guitar and should have known better. Unfortunately, the dozens of singers and recording companies who received my demo tapes did know better. I tossed my musical ambitions into the growing pile of unfulfilled dreams at the back of my mental closet. The experience wasn’t a total loss though. All those late night studio sessions became the catalyst that ultimately led to my first divorce.

Years later during a weekend visit with Wen, her seventeen-year-old daughter, Tan, arrived home with a guitar, the same three chords I had mastered years before, and a just-written first song. “This is fabulous!” I told Tan when she finished playing it for me, in much the same way Wen had enthused over my first effort except with the added emphasis of a person somewhat qualified to know what I was talking about.

Shortly afterward, Tan moved to Vancouver and became a street busker. I felt guilty about this and wondered if was my appreciation that inspired such a risky career move. Would Wen blame me for her daughter’s tragic spiral into a heartbroken bag lady living under a bridge? But my fears were groundless, because unlike my muse, Tan’s was made of sterner stuff.

Tan paid her musical dues on the mean streets. She learned many more chords than I had ever aspired to and developed a unique musical style along with a supportive circle of musician friends who were much more qualified to assess her talent than my friends had been. When her first CD didn’t rocket her to the top of the charts, she didn’t fold like a dying camel the way I had. Although she had less time to devote to music when she started her own family, she kept her dreams rainbow bright by performing at open mic events.

Tan is just not the kind of woman to make piles of unfulfilled dreams, which is why I felt so proud when I clicked on that link. I’m not responsible for Tan’s talent. She was born talented. I’m not responsible for Tan’s courage and persistence. She had those long before she picked up a guitar. But I am, in my own small way, responsible for at least one of the little sparkly bits on Tan’s first rainbow of hope.

I no longer see my musical career as a failure. It has served its purpose in the grand scheme of creative achievement. It can never be over while the thin lady sings.