Hello. I don’t know if you can help me but, well. I find it really awkward to talk about this. It’s not something I would do normally.
You see, the trouble is, I’m...I’m an over-used tune. I’ve said it. There’s no shame in it really I know, but. Well, it breaks my heart to have to admit it.
Once I was beautiful. A beautiful tune dancing above a startlingly original chord progression. I was the envy of my peers. Other tunes used to make jealous remarks about how successful I was, and how liked. Then it happened. Another group had a big hit using my tune. Yes, they changed the melody slightly. Yes, there were less guitars and more of a beat. Alright, I accept it - it was a different beat. A rocking beat. Probably a whole different set of people “got on down” to me then, but I couldn’t help feeling cheapened. Yes, I felt ashamed. I felt dirty and not a little used. It was degrading. I didn’t want to go out because I knew my friends would think I’d sold out. I hadn’t!
I know it wasn’t my fault. No, I know. I shouldn’t blame myself, but...
It got worse. It got worse, yes. I could have lived with the cover versions of my original incarnation. OK, if a song becomes successful other people want to jump on the bandwagon. It only stands to reason. I can live with that (unless it’s murdered by someone.) But I found myself appearing all over the place. A New Romantic act here, an award winning film score there. A commercial for peanuts. All the composers seemed to get away with it, using me yet claiming their piece as an original work. It made me sick. Sick to the stomach.
I just wanted to curl up in a corner and never be played again. Ever. But my tune was too seductive, too good, ever popular. I always knew it was good. But it was only meant for the first time. For its first fling. Its first promenade with the public. Evermore remembered for its originality.
Sorry. Let me compose myself. I’m okay.
Things have just come to a head. Before I came here I, I heard a song - on the radio. A so-called “new release” - a new release! - by a brand new band, a boy band. A whole new launch for them, for these optimistic hopefuls. Yet there I was. It was me all over again! Sure, there was a backing track with Irish instruments - and the mandatory soft vocal style of the modern day boy band. Yes, I could hear the Uilleann pipes. Damn those Uilleann pipes! It was my tune again. Dressed up to look different. Again. I don’t know what to do. I feel so embarrassed. Humiliated. The first time was so raw and so, so perfect, it made your heart turn upside down. Now I’m as common as a blues riff.
Sorry for going on so. It’s just that, well, people won’t believe now that I wasn’t always.
Want to review or comment on this short story?
Need a FREE Reader Membership?
Reviewed by Jim Smith
8/10/2002
I liked the idea. I think you could describe the song more. You get into it a little, but I'd like to know why songs really get used over and over again.
A naïve councilman and a down-on-her-luck single mom try to save their county’s last stand of forest from greedy developers and a dysfunctional government.
