Recently, I was driving home from the aforementioned Somethin’s Brewin’ Cafe in Lakeville, where I was plugging my gig this Friday, and I was reveling in the fact that I had come up with not one, but two really good ideas for songs, and suddenly, as I merged onto I-93, I had a third idea even better than the others. By the time I got home a half hour later, I’d written the first verse and chorus.
The idea for the song grew out of the phrase “plan B”, and that’s the title of the song – it’s about a man who has no idea what he’ll do if his current relationship fails. And to make matters more complicated, he’s actually not the easiest person to get along with:
I tried living alone
But that didn’t work out too well
I spent my nights on the phone with distant friends
And only tales of self-pity to tell
I know that some days feel like midnight
More than other days feel like dawn
I know you’d rather get out
Before the goodwill is goneBut you can’t give up yet, babe
You can’t give up on me
I’m working without a net, babe
I got no plan B
I got no plan B
And here is where I typically get stuck. I have a good idea. I write a first verse I’m really happy with. But now I have to get inside the head of the character, because over the last several years, my songwriting has become more and more about authentic voices of people who am I not, or am not quite. Some of these people are profoundly ridiculous, like the overly literal protagonist of “Baby, Let Me Make Your Dreams Come True”. But some of them are pretty serious, like the person who sings “Broken”. It’s not easy to channel these folks, and in many situations, it’s been slowing me down.
I am not quite the protagonist of “Plan B”. Rather, I’m terrified that I could be the protagonist of “Plan B”. I’ve lived with this terror for years now, and you’d think, after all this time, that it would be a character I could flesh out reasonably easily. But I was stuck. In some drafts, he was insensitive – but that was wrong; he’s not insensitive, he’s troubled. Then I tried to put in something to show he was sensitive, and that went over like the proverbial lead balloon. In some drafts, he was too aware of his problem – but that was wrong, too; the essence of the character needed to be shown from inside, from the character’s point of view, and if the narrator knew too much about his own problem, he wouldn’t have it.
Finally, I talked to my wife, She Who Must Be Taunted – not for reassurance that I wasn’t this guy, mind you, but because my wife is a novelist, and I thought she may have some insights into the character. And she asked a simple and obvious question: “How’s the partner experiencing this?” And as I reflected on this, I realized that this song wasn’t quite a character song – it was a relationship song, as narrated by one side of the story. Once I figured that out, I was basically one long walk away from finishing it up.
Here it is: http://www.sambayer.com/songs/plan_b.html. Let me know what you think.