Thinking Back to Those Days

About 15 years later.

“Hey Billie, we are off. Get some rest dude! I am sure the song will come out of you eventually. It always does.”

Tre came into the room I was in at the studio with Mike, I received pats on the back from both of them, and then out the door they went with goodbyes.

I had been knocking about ideas all day in the studio and I was growing weary as I sat in front of the gleaming grand piano, where I had been for the last two hours.

I looked down at the white keys, the contrasting black ones, but I could not see melody. I also looked up at the white paper with black ink upon it.

It was mere scribbles of my artistic, no, all my frustrations in general. I stared back at the keys again. A nice old man who was staying with Adrienne’s parents when we too were staying there for the summer turned me on to the large instrument with is beautiful playing. I loved it so much, as soon as I got home to Oakland, I purchased on for my house, and requested for the people at the studio to take theirs out from the dusty depths of the store closet, and have it tuned for when my band mates and I came to record our ninth album.
I had used the piano on a few tracks and demos and it fit well with everything Mike and Tre and I had done so far. But I felt the need to do another on the piano, I just had to. But I couldn’t make a song come out of me. I sat there and started to roll things over in my mind, as I had done all day. I thought about memories, good times, bad times, and everything in-between to help me try and figure out this song. I had been doing the same process for twenty years. And this always happened. There was always one song I drew blanks on before I came up with it. I would come up with bits and pieces, and then struggle with the rest. But I was proud of these songs that drove me nuts to create. Who Wrote Holden Caulfield, When I Come Around, We are the Waiting, among some others.

So again, I looked at the paper sitting in the little place that holds the sheet music on the piano.”Glory, Gloria, girls, women, strong, light, a fire, landscape of a lie, youth” these words were written across the paper. Some were circled, star-ed, crossed out, and then written again bolder.

Then it hit me.

**

Mike and Paloma and I laid on a blanket, watching the sunset. It was three days before I found out she was gone.

“Look at all the fucking glory the sun has. We sit here and bask in it, and then lay in awe as it falls asleep.” Paloma said, while looking pensive.

“You alright Paloma?” I asked looking at my friend.

She bit the tip of her ink stained finger as she always did when she was deep in thought. The ink was from the marker we had used to signed our names with inside the yellow slide in the park that day.

“I want to be young forever. Light the world with what I know. Like the sun, or fire or something. Sometimes I do want to move out, you know, be on my own, but I don’t want to lose the youth I have now; I don’t want to lose it, not even when I am 76.”

“Me too,” I said.

“But that is not realistic, is it?” said Mike.

She sat up and said, “Yeah I know, but I have an undying love for that idea, and many more things. I guess that is what makes me reassured that maybe it won’t be just a dream. “

**
Viva La Gloria was easy to write after that. I showed what I had to the guys and they approved without hesitation. To me it was one of the gems of the album, I enjoyed recording it, playing it in rehearsals, and playing it live. It was well-received too, and my heart soared at that moment when I saw thousands singing the song I had written about a part of me. That is why I love what I do, because of those people who understand what I am singing about. I know they do, because I can feel it, when the sound of them singing comes back to my ears as I stand on stage.