the brief

originally channeled at a Jesse Cook concert, the first pure rom-flavour karosong and affectionate ode to a long-past relationship

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To the end of the 3.2 set, Jesse Cook was the only unwitting collaborator whose music I knew before I started to channel songs based on their work. My wife Ellen and I had seen Jesse many times, including at an all-day outdoor harvest festival one perfect September long weekend. At least one new karosong channeled as Jesse played its async partner on stage that day. (See Nothing says 3.1 with Ocean Blue by Jesse Cook for the other song that may have channeled the same day.)

But I forgot the lyrics and even the name of the async track. I only remembered that I had channeled a new song, that the word "blue" was in the title of the async track as well as the CD it came from, and that "afternoon" was a key theme or phrase.

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In the still early third phase, during the summer of 2018 when I was 'between properties', I searched for and found two songs from Jesse's CD The Blue Guitar Sessions that had "blue" in their titles — Ocean Blue and Fields of Blue.

A karosong started to channel with Ocean Blue at the beginning of August. It became the first funi-flavour song since the first phase, a wordplay mindbender called Nothing says.

Although there was no hint of "afternoon" in the emerging lyrics, I thought I'd found the song I'd channeled at that concert.

Then just a week or so later, another song started to channel, this one with Jesse's Fields of Blue. This time it was the "afternon" song from the concert.

No, I don't recall if I saw the irony in the song's title at the time..

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I was thinking about you the other day
thinking about that summer we had together
those long lazy days
the chilly morning swims

thinking about the ways we found to pass the time
just together and nothing more

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do you remember how we spent the afternoons
watching time's light flow across the wall?
do you remember how we whiled away the days?
do you remember the eternities we spent together?

i remember it all
and treasure it still

well, at least as much as a retired old fart
with misfiring neurons can manage

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It was an easy, even enjoyable song to channel. The bog standard structure (3 verses / 3 choruses) and most of the lyrics came within several weeks. There was a definite style to the singing, an emerging vocal 'personality' I quite liked. But it featured a lot of drawn-out phrasing and I struggled to pin those parts down and then achieve them vocally.

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no i'm not looking to get back together,
i'm just indulging old memories
for unlike the lost grey hairs
they are still a part of the me I have become

and lovers I've learned
always carry a part of each other . . . always

no matter how it ended . . .
madly gladly badly sadly

hopefully what you carry off is positive, worth having
and i thank you, for with you i learned
how to make time stand still

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The third verse was the only section that took a while to fully clarify. I had the sense of it and rough lyrics but it stayed just out of reach for many months.

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i hope you're doing well and your life so far
is enough of everything you wanted way back when
we were so young, so trusting it's actually
a bit embarassing but hey nobody died

still i hope you haven't lost all your trust
and that every once in awhile you find the time
to while away the days
and daze away the whiles

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Post-script

More than a year after I remember it all was 'finished', during the period the whole/full karo was emerging in the summer/early fall of 2020, I returned to this song. Once I'd reconnected, it was even more enjoyable to sing. The whole/full karo voice is much more relaxed and open than my singing back when this song was first channeling.

But there was a sudden change right at the very end where originally, after the final chorus, there was a trailing out repeat of the first line and a half of the chorus "do you remember how we spent the afternoons / watching time's light / flow?"

I suddenly felt to shorten that trailing out phrase to end at "afternoons". It made a world of difference.

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do you remember how we spent the afternoons
watching time's light flow across the wall?

do you remember how we whiled away the days?
do you remember the eternities we spent together?

do you remember how we spent
the afternoons?

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It sang better, much better. And it also reconnected me back to that September afternoon watching Jesse perform. Now when I sing that final trailing out phrase, I can feel that afternoon's warmth, the song ending on stage, and my elation, my jubilation at the beautiful new song I had been blessed with.

But promptly forgot.