HAUNTED BY LOVE

Not last night, but the night before I had a restless night of non-sleep. Weird and strange dreams filled my head, which is nothing unusual for me. Right before I woke up, way too early for me I might add, my dreams were supplanted by a song playing in my head. I was writing in my sleep (as opposed to “Walking in my sleep”).

This happens to me now and again. I awake right after hearing the song I was writing and then immediately get up no matter what the hour and grab a pen and notebook which I’ve got plenty of scattered about for just such things. I quickly jotted down the song lyrics in bleary-eyed chicken scratch while the sun was just beginning to enter my bedroom window’s eastern exposure.

I then dragged my tired ass with bare feet across the cool tiled flooring of the quiet morning household into my studio and sat down at the piano bench of my beloved Wurlitzer electric piano. As I turned the on knob which is also the volume knob, the old vintage piano scratched awake as I turned up the volume to a quiet level for my noise sensitive ears. I could hear the 60 cycle hum of the piano as it’s inner working electrics awoke for yet one more banging as if to say to me “It’s rather early for all of this isn’t it?”

On top of the piano I keep one of the cheapest cassette decks ever made loaded with fresh tape at the ready for inspired moments such as these. I always have to laugh that in the midst of quite an enormous amount of studio recording gear that I always start out by using this little wannabe “boom box” as my first step in song writing and recording. I use it as a scratch pad for new songs because I still cannot read or write music notation proper…only chords, so if I don’t record a demo version of the song then I will forever forget it later, even when I have written down the words and chords over them, I’ll end up forgetting the tempo and melody lines and the song will end up a useless piece of poetry. (Not that there is anything wrong with poems, but I’m a songwriter really…I don’t see myself as a poet although I guess I must be.)

So I took what I was hearing in my head from the dream and found the matching notes to produce the needed chords to complete it. Whenever I write music in my sleep I always wonder if it’s just someone else’s song that has made it’s way into my head but in all the times I’ve done this, that has never once been the case…but it always feels that way because I already have the whole song in my head…it’s a cool thing really and also sort of weird as well but I’ll gladly take inspiration wherever and whenever I can get it.

Now, I am for the first time here transcribing my lyrics to the new song from my original half awake penned version, and it’s hard to imagine what a song sounds like just by reading the words only but here they are…

HAUNTED BY LOVE
Copyright 2008 by Lennon’s Ghost / W.P.V.
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All Rights Reserved.

I’m a man of nothing
Nothing in these eyes
There’s nothing but hurt here
Here deep inside
I awake from sleeping
Underneath gray skies
I’m a man of nothing
A nothing you’ll despise

Don’t walk beside me
The sun won’t shine
Nothing left to touch here
Reaching out unwise
I’m a man of substance
So cold and black
I’m a man of nothing
I’ll hold you back

I’m haunted by dreams
The foil it seems
The sub-plot below
Of all that you know
The shell of a man
Who does what he can
Though never enough
I’m haunted by love

I’m a man of nothing
I’m the walking dead
Nothing to gain here
Run away instead
I awake from nightmares
Chasing the blue sky
I’m a man of nothing
So don’t even try

I’m haunted by dreams
The foil it seems
The sub-plot below
Of all that you know
The shell of a man
Who does what he can
Though never enough
I’m haunted by love

I’m a man of nowhere
Nowhere to belong
A paradox, a quandary
An oxymoron
Don’t cast your lot in
With the likes of me
No good will come of
Your generosity

I’m haunted by dreams
The foil it seems
The sub-plot below
Of all that you know
The shell of a man
Who does what he can
Though never enough
I’m haunted by love