But the blame can’t rest solely on my shoulders. “Syd could be very impatient,” I say. “If he wanted something, he wouldn’t let up until he got it. He’d wear you down. But the thing is, everyone works at their own pace.”
She seems to understand. “I guess I’m like Sydney, then, and you’re the other kind. You wait around until the magic finally happens.”
She’s talking about our song. That wasn’t what I was referring to, but that doesn’t mean she’s wrong.
“What if your good ideas don’t come fast enough?” Joan says. “We don’t have much time left. Don’t forget, we’re recording the song tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “We’ll get it done.”
I’m not sure if one approach is better than the other. Sometimes I wonder if Syd had an instinct, reinforced by his family’s troubled health history, that his time was limited and that’s what made him so driven. Whatever the case, there’s one thing I do know: If I could go back and do that one night over again last December, I’d do it his way. I’d set aside my reservations. I’d grant him his wish.
19
I jump out of bed the next morning and run across the hall. I’m about to knock on my parents’ door but Mom comes up behind me and whispers, “He’s sleeping.”
I put my arm down and follow Mom into the kitchen. She’s grabbing eggs from the fridge and a can of beans from the pantry and there’s chopped cilantro on the cutting board, which means she’s making Dad’s favorite breakfast: huevos rancheros.
On the living-room computer, I go to the website for the contest and click on the Rules page. Entries will be judged on originality, melody, composition, and lyrics (if applicable).
I grab my notebook and read through John Lennon’s Ten Rules of Songwriting again. Rule no. 1: Get to It. On ten of the forty songs I studied, John starts singing as soon as the music begins, and on nineteen of the songs he starts singing within the first five seconds. He hardly ever waits more than ten seconds.
Rule no. 2: Repeat the Song Title. If John names his song “Sexy Sadie,” that means you’re going to hear him say sexy Sadie a lot during the song (twelve times). He loves to repeat the title: “Help” (sixteen times), “Julia” (fifteen times), “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” (fifteen times). His personal record is “Power to the People” (thirty-one times).
Then there’s rule no. 3: Start with the Chorus. And rule no. 6: Lyrics Don’t Have to Make Sense As Long As They Sound Good. And rule no. 8: When in Doubt, Fade Out. Now that I’m thinking about it, our song breaks almost all of John’s rules. Maybe that’s because our song follows rule no. 10: The Best Songs Sometimes Break the Rules. The best example of rule no. 10 is “A Day in the Life.” Still, if we really want him to, Dad can give our song a fade-out, it’s not too late.
Speaking of Dad, he’s finally awake. I follow him into the kitchen. He sees what Mom is cooking and he pulls her forehead to his lips. He reaches for me too and squeezes us both, his two girls. I break away and do a little dance on the kitchen floor. “When can we start?”
Dad splashes sink water on his face and dries it with a dish towel, which is pretty gross. “I need a few hours, honey.”
“How many?”
“Joan,” Mom says, pouring the cracked eggs into the pan. I think she wants some of Dad’s time too, which is fine, but does it have to be today?
Dad scoops coffee into his machine and I wonder if I should have coffee too because it’s a very important day and I have a lot of work to do, but the truth is I don’t need more energy and I also don’t drink coffee.
I have to leave the kitchen because the smell of eggs is starting to hurt my nose. “I’ll go see if Gavin’s awake.”
“He left,” Mom says, swinging the spatula.
“What? Where’d he go?”
“He didn’t say.”
“When is he coming back?”
“I don’t know,” Mom says, and she says it like she wouldn’t mind knowing the answer herself.
Dad is finally back where he should be, in his studio. All the lamps are glowing and the computer tower is doing its low hum and Dad has his roller chair set to his height. I know Dad has been the one missing but in a way I feel like I’m the one who’s been gone and I just came home.
I sit on a stool in the Quiet Room and Dad tells me to tune up the Gibson while he sets up microphones around me. I’m so excited to be here with him, finally, but then I notice the Monkey Finger tattoo on his arm and I can’t help but get sad.
Monkey Finger is the name of Dad’s music company and it’s from a line in John Lennon’s song “Come Together.” Once Dad shuts down the studio and stops making music for his company, it’s going to hurt when I look at that tattoo. Sometimes reminders aren’t a good thing. Gavin knows that too.
Before we start recording, Dad wants me to run through the song with him. I play my guitar part and hum the melody and my hands start to sweat because I’m nervous about what Dad will say.
He stares at the guitar a long time after I finish. “I’m sorry I wasn’t around to help you more,” Dad tells me, and he says it like it’s a hard thing to say.
“Does that mean you don’t like the song?”
“No, honey, I love it. I’m really proud of you.”
After so many days of feeling like I was getting nowhere, it’s so good to hear this from Dad, especially because I was worried he might be mad that I wrote the song with Gavin and not him. Also because I went to all those cool John Lennon places in New York City without him and normally he’s the one who shows me those kinds of things.
“I do have a thought, though,” Dad says. “What if you walked up to the C on the chorus instead of going back to the E minor?”
He grabs another acoustic off the rack and plays the new part. I see what he means, so I copy Dad’s fingers and I start practicing it. He puts the big headphones over my ears and tells me to keep playing. When he shuts the door, it gets super-quiet.
I want Gavin to watch me record my guitar part but he’s still not home and I’m getting worried. He knows what today is. I can understand if he was having trouble finishing the lyrics and he wanted to go out and have more experiences, but we don’t have much time left, only a few hours. But if this is something different, like Gavin deciding to do something else today because our song slipped his mind, then I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m probably going to cry, baby, cry, which is a John Lennon song and also something to do when you’re completely out of ideas.
Dad’s at the computer now but I’m too short to see through the window. His voice comes through my headphones and it sounds like there’s a tiny person living inside my ear. “Ready to try one?”
I’ve recorded with Dad so many times, but each time is just as exciting as the last. “Let’s do it,” I say.
I play the song once and Dad comes into the booth and moves the microphone closer to the guitar. He tells me to play the song again and again and again and then he tells me to stop and come into the studio.