Blue Dawn

Greggeloptics, my son calls me, stopped counting the years somewhere around sixty-five, but the gray in my remaining hair and the way my fingers sometimes hesitate over the frets remind me I am pushing seventy. I sat in my cluttered workshop in the garage near my rocking chair, musical spaceship contraption, surrounded by half-finished songs scrawled in notebooks, old guitar picks embedded in the wood grain of my high-end desk, and a couple of guitars, now somewhat vintage.

The Netflix show, "Poker Face," was playing that Springsteen song again—"Glory Days"—and I found myself nodding along. I understand Bruce, understand that hunger to capture something true about American life, the way a three-chord progression could hold an entire world. But where Bruce had taken his stories to stadiums and talk shows, I keep mine close to home, like secrets whispered to old friends. My son asked why I never released my music to streaming, so I did.

My phone buzzed. Another "spam likely" call from some licensing company wanting to place my 1980 song about walking, "They Give Me Hope," in a shoe commercial. If I pay them $50.00 for review. I deleted it without reading past the subject line. I'd been getting more of these lately—mining the pockets of songwriters having a hot and heavy romance with fame, it's the oldest music scam in the book. They talked about "authentic storytelling" and "nostalgic brand alignment" as if my songs were products waiting to be unwrapped.

I gestured to the legal pad in front of me, half-filled with crossed-out lines. "Trying to figure out how to write about forgetting."

Sophie stepped closer, curious. "Forgetting what?"

"That's the problem. If I could remember what I was trying to forget, I'd know how to write about it."

She laughed, but I was partly serious. At my age, memory had become the ultimate unreliable narrator. I could remember every chord change from a song I wrote in 1984, but couldn't recall what I'd had for breakfast. My memory isn't quite that bad, but details aren't always quick the way they used to be. The irony wasn't lost on me—a songwriter whose instrument needed constant tuning.

I strummed a G chord, let it ring out. "Your professor ever tell you about the difference between making music and making music business?"

"No, but I'm guessing you're about to."

I smiled. Sophie was sharp, reminded me of myself at her age, when every song felt like it might change the world.

"And you prefer the two AM thing. Writing until Blue Dawn?"

"I prefer the two PM thing. But if I can't sleep, Blue Dawn it is."

I've turned down a few opportunities in the music "business". When a music publisher handed me a contract many years ago, I handed it to a lawyer. The publisher would not sign off on the revisions. New songwriters have zero leverage in music "business" deals. After a positive review in Billboard Magazine, a producer promised to make me the next big thing. Each time, I'd felt the same BS alarm ring, the instinct to run.

It wasn't fear exactly, though fear was part of it. It was more like protecting something sacred. My songs are conversations with myself, with the ghosts of people I'd known, with the version of America I'd grown up in and watched slowly disappear. To perform them for strangers felt oddly like betrayal. But even more odd, I like it when asked.

I sat down my guitar and looked out the window at my small backyard, where tomatoes grew in pots and a bluejay was building a nest in the oak tree. "I feel like I might have spent the last thirty years writing songs someone else told me were hits."

"But more people would know your music."

"Girls," Sophie giggled.

I squinted my eyes at Sophie like Clint Eastwood.

I picked up my guitar again, started finger-picking a melody that had been haunting me for weeks.

Sophie listened as I played, the melody simple but haunting, like something remembered from a dream.

"And he got rich," Sophie said. "There are easier ways to get rich." I replied.

"What's this one about?" she asked as the melody resolved.

I smiled. "It's about a conversation I had with a smart young woman who asked me why I don't want to be famous. By the way, I don't want to be famous. But I'd take the money if someone was serious about song licensing. Until then, I keep upgrading my spaceship," I giggled.

"You made a movie here too. How was that?" "Confusing. I had so much fun writing the movie, the music, making the 'spaceship,' directing, acting and filming. The movie debut was so much fun with everyone at the house." I said.

"Besides being a fun project, was the movie helpful to you?" she asked.

Sophie laughed and changed the subject back to songwriting.

"Musically speaking are you always writing about right now?"

"Not always. Sometimes I pretended to be someone else and/or wrote a song about what I think they think about me. To clarify: the movie was one giant marketing idea for my original songs. I don't think it helped. But it was fun."

Sophie stayed for another hour, listening as I worked through the chord progression, refined the melody, searched for the words that would capture not just the conversation but the feeling underneath it—the strange contentment of choosing smallness in a world that equated success with size.

As she left, Sophie stopped in the doorway and asked: "Any idea how all this new AI will effect music?" I paused to think in the workshop as the sun set through the windows. "I want to encourage you to play music and perform because you love it and not worry about music 'business.' But with Elvis and the Beatles came the end of the big band and jazz eras. Jobs for orchestras and horn players got fewer and far between. I wouldn't be surprised if that also becomes true for singers and songwriters."

I think about Bruce, getting ready for another stadium show somewhere, perhaps carrying the weight of other people's dreams on his shoulders.

Sophie waved goodbye as she left to walk back home. I had a song to finish, and only myself to please. The bluejay outside my window started to chirp, and I found myself chirping back. Two creatures making sound for the simple reason that they had something to say. In the distance, a church bell rang, marking the end of another hour for people sitting home thinking about their own glory days.