You've given away my preciousssssss....

Denise and I stopped in Half Price Books the other night, and as is my usual pattern, I went to the SF/Fatnasy section for ego-scanning.  I saw two of the old "Stephen Leigh" books -- Crystal Memory and The Bones of God. I leafed through them... and saw that both were autographed copies, with personalized inscriptions to a "Dave." 

Nothing quite so humbling as realizing just how precious your personally-autographed books were to somebody...  :-)

The New Start Blues

I wrote a new tune a few weeks back, after hearing from a few peers among the writing folk that they were looking into committing pseudonyms in order to continue a career -- because the publishers wouldn't take a new book under their 'real' names.  As someone who's gone through that myself (when I switched genres, I was told I needed to also switch names), it struck a chord... so to speak.

So I wrote down a few verses, and over the last few days put together a Garageband demo of the song.  Click here if you'd like to listen.  All the mistakes are mine -- as are all the instruments except for the drums, which are a loop.

Here are the verses:

The New Start Blues - Stephen Leigh  (or S.L. Farrell... who knows...)

Gotta start now, you gotta make the change
To your old name you say “auf Wiedersehen”
Break it off, start in clean
But where to go, what’s all this mean?
Can’t stay the same ‘cause that’s everyone does
If you’re like the others you don’t create a buzz
Around, around, around you go
Where you start, nobody knows
Inward, outward, up you go
Or is it down and out to close?

It doesn’t matter what you did before
They want something new, they want something more
You might have had some talk and some great reviews
But that’s a notion you must disabuse  (You gotta)
Start again, just forget the past
All your old work just leaves the fans aghast
Around, around, around you go
It’s not a mountain, it’s a lousy plateau
Inward, outward, up you go
Gotta lose that old ego

If they decide they like the new song you play
The suits might let you go ahead and stay
Just remember that it’s only for now
If the crowds don’t buy it they will disavow
All that they said, all that they promised
They will deny you just like Doubting Thomas
Around, around, around you go
There ain’t no way to keep the status quo 
Inward, outward, up you go
They say goodbye just to say hello
They say goodbye just to say hello
They say goodbye just to say hello