My recording career may take a while to take off

I recently wrote one of the most beautiful songs of all time. Sounds boastful, I know, but it’s true. 

As I’ve mentioned before in this column, I’ve been a musician since age 11, when my folks dropped the as-of-then unheard of amount of $26.95 to buy me a junior-sized guitar from the Sears catalog. 

Since then, I’ve been honing my craft, but very, very slowly. It’s been 45 years and my guitar playing still stinks. My singing’s a little better. And I do play several other instruments as well, though badly.

Fortunately, in my band, The Guinness Brothers, I’ve managed to surround myself with musicians far more gifted than myself. Hence, we keep fairly busy working local clubs even during these economically trying times.

For the most part, we play cover tunes; typical bar-band music written by people with record contracts, stretch limos, and long, undulating histories of drug abuse and rehab clinics. But every so often, I’ll write an original song and we’ll toss that into the mix until we get tired of it or bar owners start complaining.

My new song, though … no bar owner would EVER complain about that. It was that good.

I should preface this by saying I almost never listen to music. Unlike every other musician I know, I rarely turn on a radio, even during long, cross-country drives. I’ve always been utterly content with the silence and the little stories scampering around my (mostly empty) head. I’ve never felt the need for a soundtrack to my life.

Consequently, I never know what music is currently popular. I rarely know the names of any “big stars” or their current hits. If it was recorded after Springsteen’s “Born to Run” album, chances are I’m not familiar with it.

The only time I hear new music is when it’s thrust upon me in an elevator, supermarket or pub.

As someone who makes at least part of his living trying to get others to listen to his music, I probably shouldn’t admit this. People have certain expectations of musicians and I don’t meet any of them.

At any rate, I figured none of that would matter once my new song went triple platinum. I had little doubt it would; it was, like I said, the greatest song ever.

The best thing about my new tune was that it just “came to me” one day while driving to a newspaper assignment. I was humming tunelessly to myself and the song just sort of formed up in my mind.

The melody was heartbreakingly perfect; something timeless and filled with melancholy, longing and a deep understanding of the human spirit. Over the next couple months I put lyrics to my new tune. The lyrics weren’t bad. They weren’t Lennon/McCartney good, but I figured the melody would carry the number anyway.

I polished the song over and over until it glistened like gold. 

Last Saturday, I sat down at the kitchen table with a pad of paper, a pencil, a guitar, and my digital recorder; my intent was to create charts and a demo in order to more easily teach my opus to the rest of the band.

It had been a while since I’d last used the recorder and the batteries were, of course, deader than Abel after his last disagreement with Cain.

At the nearby super-store, I trudged the requisite half-mile to the electronics department and picked up a pack of triple-A’s. On my way back to the checkout counter, my song came over the store’s Muzak system.

MY song! The lyrics were different, but that tune … that tune was MINE!

Well, as it turns out, that tune was not mine; it was Sting’s. The song, as I later learned, is called “Fields of Gold,” and was released by the former Police front-man in 1993. At some point I must have heard it, though I swear, I don’t remember hearing it.

I had put three months work into re-writing somebody else’s song. Worse still, Sting’s lyrics were a lot better than mine. A lot.

To say I was bummed out would be an understatement. But it could be worse. I do have another song in the hopper, and it really has potential. It’s a cute, little number. About an octopus and his under-sea garden.

Mike Taylor’s book, “Looking at the Pint Half Full,” is available in eBook format on Amazon.com, or in paperback at mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com.