Figuring out what you're talking about

May 20, 2004

Dear Leslie,

When we were in our early 20s, my musician friend Randy wrote a jazzy sounding tune and asked me to provide some lyrics. I gave it a try. The result was a melodically catchy song called "One to One." Its gist was my confusion about how a relationship between two people is supposed to work and supposed to last.

The words sound clunky to me now, almost certainly because I didn't know what I was trying to say. I didn't know how to love someone. I didn't know how to be loved by someone.

I was doing grownup things with my girlfriend but still felt like a little boy. Of course, I didn't know that was the problem at the time. I just felt like there was a stranger in the room, and the stranger was me.

I had growing up to do, and some women who didn't realize it were left wondering what went wrong.

Sometimes I wonder whether the growing up ever stops.

This morning I awoke from a dream about the "One to One" girlfriend. In the dream, I realized that I kept a certain distance between us all those years we were together. I was guilty of withholding love from her. I realized there are ways I still do the same to DC.

When DC called later in the day asking whether I could go pick up our ailing beagle Alvie from the vet, my first response was that I was too busy to stop right then but could do it before dinner. DC said she'd do it.

After hanging up, I wondered why she'd wanted me to go get Alvie then and realized that she wanted him back right away but was afraid the vet would have bad news about him. DC lives in fear of bad news.

I called her back, and we went to the vet together.

It was a small realization and not nearly immediate enough. But that is how you love someone, by opening up to them one situation at a time. "Love is a gift that must constantly be given..." Paul Ferrini writes in "Love Without Conditions."

Randy eventually made a demo that included "One to One." Somehow a producer who got involved took a writing credit for adjusting a few of the lyrics, and a still-unknown country singer named Jolene put the song on her album -- but not before changing many more of the lyrics. Now it was a country song largely written by other people. So much for becoming a songwriter.

Randy kept writing songs. Boxcar Willie, the late country singer of hobo songs, recorded a Randy railroad tune called "Hot Box Blues." Now Randy writes songs for a St. Louis band called the Melroys. They're coming to town this weekend.

Randy tells me my name has disappeared from the credits for "One to One." He's going to contact BMI and try to reinstate my teensy toehold in the world of country songwriters.

DC thinks it could be important. You never know when a singer who doesn't know what he's talking about might be looking for catchy song.

DC waited in the car while I went into the vet's office to fetch Alvie. He was still getting X-rayed. DC remained in the car. Half an hour passed. The vet emerged saying Alvie is sick, anemic, but not as bad off as we'd feared.

DC popped through the front door just as Alvie came into the waiting room, baying his anemic head off.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.