The initial clarity on waking up is startling. It’s like someone’s taken the blinkers off. Or the clouds have lifted after twenty years. But then the pangs of regret, shame and despair start crashing in. In waves. When these moments become routine in relation to regular (for me – mostly daily) alcohol consumption. This shit ain’t fun anymore.
And after a particularly bad night, I woke to sunshine and a night of despair turned into a glorious morning. The sunlight snatched me away from those waves I should have been submerged in and drew me to the window. A loft bedroom without curtains led to the first line, and the clothes hanging on the clothes lines, across the rows of houses in front of me, propelled me into some sort of momentum.
In Tom’s flat, we did our usual, of awkwardly trying to ‘play band’ and then I nervously shared what became this new song. And Tom nodded. No smile, no grimace, just a plain nod. And then he asked me to play the riff again and again whilst he worked out this lead part that was too messy and too fast to play, but too good not to play.
‘I don’t have a chorus though’. I proclaimed.
Tom broke his ponderance… ‘It makes you feel a bit ‘raaaargh’… You know? Needs to be something like ‘see you on fire’.’
‘Hmmm, it’ll do for now.’ I’m gonna change it later, I figured.
Of course, that wasn’t to be the case, ‘cos Tom was right. It made us feel a bit ‘raaaargh’…
