Around 2 or 3 am as I lay in bed, worrying, unable to sleep and actually feeling a bit panicked, I got up and decided to do something to try and break free of the anxiety.
As with the last time it happened, the first, almost default, thing that came to mind was to release one of the songs.
There was one that had been sitting patiently, waiting and it was the one was released in the early hours of the morning.
Santa Monica.
The release from the previous October was the edited version but there was an extended version that hadn’t yet been heard.
Even though I was singing on it, I have no memory of it happening so it’s as though I’m listening from the outside while someone who sounds just like me is singing.
It lasts for over 5 minutes and the musicians were quite simply, on fire.
I can only imagine that it was a spontaneous release of energy after working on the song for most of the day.
I've promised myself I’d ask them when we come together again, but my intuition tells me that it wasn’t planned.
The rhythmic interplay, between them all, Michael and Mel, Toby and Kim, still takes my breath away.
I hear myself sing a note that I’m not sure I knew (and still don’t know) existed never mind where it came from.
The magic was complete when Janine added the harmonies but since then it’s been sitting on the hard drive on my laptop.
In the past life I once told a lady about a song I’d recorded and the doubts I had around releasing it. It would have been around 2007 I think, so I don’t know what releasing it even meant back then, but whatever it was, I was reluctant because of a fear of failure.
The lady had said something, that even now, I haven’t forgotten,
“It’s not yours to keep.”
So, after lying awake early in the morning,, not knowing what to do and about to have a panic attack, her words had told me what to do.
A version of a song that was never mine to keep.
Time to let it go.
Santa Monica is available to hear on all the major streaming platforms.