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She says the last part teasingly, and I’m a little relieved to hear she’s not some super-fan who’s just trying to get closer to me with these interviews. I’ve been lucky to not have any obsessively dangerous fans like some artists have. My fans seem to be mostly down-to-earth folks who just like to two-step a bit, maybe get a little rowdy for a party anthem, or have something to keep the dusty roads a little more tolerable as they get to work. But I’ll admit that I wanted her to at least be familiar with my music. It’s integral to my soul, and I’m curious to know what she thinks about my music, even if that makes me vulnerable.
Elise takes my question and turns it around smoothly, not like an interview but . . . almost like a date or something. “What about your musical tastes? What do you listen to?”
Been there, done this question before, so I answer using my usual country charm story. “My mom used to sing Patsy Cline to us, played us all the classics . . . Johnny Cash, Hank Williams One and Two, Reba McIntyre, George Strait, and more, so I always have a soft spot for those. She also played a lot of that sixties rock, when country and rock were sort of walking hand in hand some. The Doors, CCR, and of course, Lynyrd Skynyrd.”
Elise smiles, humming a few bars. “I’ve jammed a little CCR. Run Through The Jungle is a damn good tune.”
I nod, impressed. Most people who only pretend to like Creedence use one of their more famous songs, but Elise somehow plucked my favorite right out of her head. “But I like newer country too . . . Jason Aldean, Dierks Bentley, even Blake Shelton, but don’t tell him I said that. Can barely get a hat to fit on that melon of his already.”
She grins, but I’d bet my favorite guitar she doesn’t even know who Blake Shelton is beyond his TV show fame or maybe his famous blonde girlfriend.
“You said you write all the time. What inspires you to write a song?”
I think for a moment, then shrug. “Everything. You ever go about your day, see a mom sitting on a park bench with a baby in a stroller and then a guy in a suit walks up? That’s a song . . . about love, responsibility, doing whatever it takes to make your woman light up when she sees you at the end of a long day. Or the guy on the side of the road, lost in his own mind and missing the life he once had. His story is a song. Watching the news and seeing a tragedy, that’s a song too. Even a party, letting loose and having a great time with friends. That’s a song. Every experience, every emotion . . . they’re worth having, worth feeling, worth sharing. It’s addicting, that ability to connect through words and notes, transform something surreal and hazy into something palpable and visceral.”
Elise is biting her lip, looking at me with delight, and I realize I think I just gave her a good quote for her article even though I was talking off the top of my head. Guess I can talk smoothly without even trying.
My attention is drawn to Elise’s mouth, watching the small white flash as her teeth press into her bottom lip before her pink tongue darts out, licking her lips to soothe the bite and leaving them shiny.
I want to taste her mouth, to abandon myself to my inner desires and let loose the reins of my lust. Before I can move from the other end of the couch, though, she asks another question, saving me. Or maybe saving her, I don’t know. “So once inspiration strikes, how do you get it to song . . . music first, lyrics first, both simultaneously?”
There’s a dirty joke in there if ever I heard one, but I try to refrain, sticking to the safer topic of music, especially since it’s why she’s here. It’ll help me just enough to stay in control of myself.
Although I can’t help riling her up. It’s just so damn fun. “The short answer is yes, all of those. Depends on the song. I’ve had melodies that I couldn’t find words to, or lyrics all laid out that just needed a tune, or sometimes, I just sit and pick at a guitar and see what happens. I had one set of lyrics that sat in the drawer for three years before I got the music right, and another that hit full on, both coming hard at once.”
Elise looks around the room again, her voice a little shaky at my last words. “And this is where the magic happens?”
I wonder what she sees when she sees this space, my private place. Does she feel the music in every molecule the way I do? Does she see the awards, the lineup of guitars, the pictures of me with favorite artists I’ve met, or does she see the hours I’ve spent in here with my eyes closed or staring at the guitar in my hands, sweating bullets as I try to combine inspiration with perspiration? I wonder what she would say if I told her about that side of things, but that’s not what I ask her.
