8. Simple Past

Nobody has ever asked me about the best song I've ever written.  And why should they?  I'm just this nobody with a bunch of albums that haven't done much.  But if they should, I would say this one.  This tune was hell to write because the lines kept clashing with each other, so I would have to change one, which would clash with another, which would then have to be changed.  Yes, J.S. Bach perfected counterpoint (and that's what I was writing here), but since I was writing something with jazz inflections, it couldn't sound full-on baroque.  It had to swing and it had to show some its jazz chops, too.  Getting the words to fit and having it make sense were another challenge.  I didn't want it to be a simple boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl story.  No, there's a certain intensity to some relationships that you make while you're traveling, and both these people are hit by this.  It's just that the guy realizes a bit too late that this was a real thing.

Like I've always said, I dislike love songs.  This isn't one of those.  It's simply an account of a guy who completely missed the boat.  It's all his fault and he's resigned to his fate.  Plain and simple.  Some people don't even get that much.  For them, there isn't even a boat.  This guy had his chance and for reason unknown to even him, he passed it up.  For this a many other reasons, this is the best song I've ever written.  It's ironic that it's on my all-time worst-selling album, which also contains some of the best pop music I can offer.  Oh, well...