the brief

a lament for a long-lost lover, and plea for the time needed to fully heal before moving on

Some karosongs take months between the time an async track is first sensed and the time the song starts to active channel. But not all. Sometimes the async track is found and the song starts to active channel almost immediately.

I'd only come across Govi's Your Lingering Touch just before the "pick any song and it will channel" experience that started the fourth phase. The track had 'donged' my spidey song sense, and been put straight onto the maybes playlist.

The karosong song named itself — after its async track — within a few weeks. It would be eponymous, just the third time that had happened. I sensed it would be a sad song, a survivor speaking about a dead lover.

i remember your lingering touch
running down my face and across my chest
and i remember the bliss it was to fall into
that space with you

It was the 48th karosong to start channeling, the 5th pure rom-flavour karosong, and the 3rd asynchronous collaboration with Govi. An easy one, unlike the first two, because I 'got' the async track quickly, and the lyrics came with little hesitation once they started.

and i remember the day you were taken
that was the day the storm clouds came
and no they still haven't left all these years later
it's still pretty dim around here

That was after I'd returned to Lake Erie for the winter, and been introduced to my cardiac condition. The song's thrust clarified through December and January as the lyrics pushed forward sub-vocally — the narrator's lover had died but the narrator had not been able to move on. He was stuck.

i know i should be getting on with my life
i should man up and get back into the fight
i know all the cliches about
what i'm supposed to think or feel or do

but the point is i'm still stuck on you
the point is i'm still stuck on you

By mid-February, the narrator was saying he knew he'd move on — eventually, just not yet.

i'm sure one of these days i'll finally get over the pain
and be able to move on with my life again
when that day comes i'll say goodbye to you
but i'll always carry a part of you in my soul

yes i will

I felt Govi's Your Lingering Touch was structurally a little similar to his Tears of Joy, the async track for karosong # 42, No plan 'B's in the 3.3 set. That karosong had reprised its main verses (twice in fact). So this idiot musant was not surprised to find this new song reprising its chorus and bridge.

Bonus, reprising the chorus and bridge meant fewer lyrics to channel, so Your lingering touch was lyrically complete by the time I returned to my Sunday Lake studio in early April. But it had yet to be sung out loud, so I didn't know whether the delivery I'd got sub-vocally would actually work.

It did. Eventually. Once I'd gone through the process of finding and firming my post-cardiac voice, I found the sub-vocal delivery worked well. Except for one small bit in the chorus, where the narrator says he knows all the cliches about how he's supposed to "think or feel or do". I could feel a staccato-like delivery for that phrase but it took several weeks to achieve it vocally.

The song's first 'release' was mixed and posted to this archive in early June from tracks recorded in May. It was far from perfect, and the still-lingering effects of my cardiac condition were easily audible. Didn't matter; I needed to get it outside of my head.

To make it real.

singing

As my voice continued recovering, this was a song that led the way, helping me understand the changes that had happened in my voice from the cardiac event. Although the subject was sad, it was a growing pleasure to sing this song, and it became what I call a 'signature' song for the set. *

The song became the second of the 4.1 set to be mastered in mid July.

* these 'signature' songs are discussed in the gord's gold playlist and tour.

Post-script

The 4.1 set included two eponymous songs that used the title of their async track, this one and #49, To take, to hold. There had only been two such songs prior to this set, and their opening vocal credits had not used the word eponymous. Instead, each had found longer ways to say the same thing without repeating the title.

That wasn't possible for the two new songs; there wasn't the time in their openings. While the most accurate solution would have been to call them eponymous asynchronous collaborations, that felt cumbersome. Malodorous even. And still too long. The shortest solution was to just call them eponymous collaborations with their artist. That phrasing then became the standard for each song's page banner, including the banners for the first two eponymous songs.