Memory Is My Lover Now by Zettel

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Memory Is My Lover Now

by Zettel

Posted: 25 August 2018
Word Count: 660
Summary: I've always admired the 3 minute Pop song: they punctuate the sentences of our lives and mark the chapters. Written as a song: but it doesn't entirely conform to the song structure. It lacks a 'bridge' because I've never quite understood what a 'bridge' is.

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I don't want this to outstay its welcome or become boring but trying to 'hear' it sung I felt it could be pared down even more without losing its sense. I can hear the final version (3) better in my head. Don't feel obliged to comment but any thoughts would be welcome.

After posting the first of these I read a bit about song 'bridges' which though not essential are apparently often used to extend or deepen the feelings and ideas of the main body of the song usually with a different key, rhythmic pattern or melody change. So as an experiment I have added a 'bridge' in the second version now added below. Thought it might be interesting. I have also re-ordered the orginal stanzas to match the usual pattern in popular songs.

I'd be interested in your views on the comparison bewteen the two.

Z

Memory Is My Lover Now (Song) (1)

(Chorus)
I love and I am loved
But my desire
Has lost its fire and so
Memory is my lover now

Passion ebbs and cools with time
The rhythm of blood
Gives way to rhyme and
Memory is my lover now

My heart now walks to steady beat
In step with passing time
No leap or racing heat for
Memory is my lover now

Is desire a young man’s game
Reckless in the rush to sea
In love and loving aren’t the same
Memory is my lover now

Perhaps it’s fitting; must be true
Rushing done, ocean found
But I still miss the thrill of you
The peace of passion found
Holding, held, all night through

Memory is my lover now

Memory Is My Lover Now (Song) (2)

Passion ebbs and cools with time
The rhythm of blood
Gives way to rhyme and
Memory is my lover now

(Chorus)
I love and I am loved
But my desire
Has lost its fire and so
Memory is my lover now

My heart now walks to steady beat
In step with passing time
No leap or racing heat for
Memory is my lover now

(Chorus)
I love and I am loved
But my desire
Has lost its fire and so
Memory is my lover now

The universe is infinite
A fearful beauty there
But here inside the intimate
Is what we long to share
To touch to feel another’s soul
To take in trust, to love, to dare

Is desire a young man’s game
Reckless in the rush to sea
In love and loving aren’t the same
Memory is my lover now

(Chorus)
I love and I am loved
But my desire
Has lost its fire and so
Memory is my lover now

Perhaps it’s fitting; must be true
Rushing done, ocean found
But I still miss the thrill of you
The peace of passion found
Holding, held, all night through

Memory is my lover now

Memory Is My Lover Now (Song) (3)

Passion ebbs, cools with time
Rhythm of blood
Transformed to rhyme
Memory is my lover now

(Chorus)
I love. I am loved
But my desire
Has lost its fire
Memory is my lover now

My heart has slowed its beat
With the passing time
No leap no racing heat
Memory is my lover now

(Chorus)
I love. I am loved
But my desire
Has lost its fire
Memory is my lover now

The universe is infinite
Fearful beauty there
But within, the intimate
Is what we long to share
To touch to feel another soul
To trust to love to dare

Desire is a young man’s game
A reckless rush to sea
In love and loving not the same
Memory is my lover now

(Chorus)
I love. I am loved
But my desire
Has lost its fire
Memory is my lover now

It is fitting. It is true
Rushing done, ocean found
I still miss the thrill of you
Peace in passion found
To hold, be held, all night through.

Memory is my lover now

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Comments by other Members

James Graham at 20:42 on 26 August 2018 Report this post

First I had better declare my ignorance of pop music. A long time ago I was a fan of ‘medieval’ pop – Tony Bennett, Sinatra, Peggy Lee – pre-Elvis and pre-Beatles. After the 60s it’s all a blank. Still, reading your song simply as a song, I find it reads very well, especially the second version.

What’s a bridge? If it’s the way the verses are echoed by the chorus – ‘Memory is my lover now’, an excellent line which resonates with me – it works well. If it’s the new 6-line verse, it works too; it stands out because it breaks the pattern. I found myself paying special attention to it for that reason. Instead of another chorus we have this stanza which surely deserves to be called ‘philosophical’ but which is expressed in clear and simple terms. This alone makes Version 2 superior to Version 1.

Would this song get into the charts? Some pop songs I’ve been obliged to listen too seem – if you can make out the words at all – a lot simpler, even, I venture to say, simple minded. As for the music, there are an awful lot of thumping rhythms and mediocre vocalists whose voices have to be enhanced through recording techniques. Your lyrics are on a higher plane, closer to Bob Dylan, who is a great favourite of mine. (Dylan isn’t so much a pop singer, more a troubador.) Did you set out to write a pop song, or a poem in the form of a pop song? What you have is the latter, I think – a poem which undoubtedly could be set to music but which is much better than the average pop song. I’m aware that all this is coloured by my sniffy attitude to pop, but it would be interesting to know what you think.

James.

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Zettel at 00:13 on 27 August 2018 Report this post

Thanks James

Any comparison with our shared admiration for Bob Dylan is most welcome: eveni if I'm not entirely persuaded that it is entirely justified. If only. But I much appreciate your relating my piece to such a context.

You are also entirely right I think that this sounds more like a poem in the form of a song than a song per se: and your reason is valid: it would have to be pared down even more and simplified if a it were to become an actual performd song. I have always felt that most of the songs that affect me most probably began as music to which lyrics were added. The great benefit of the rigorous simplicity of the 3 minute pop song for me is that the melody leads; its is the skeleton that gives shape and form to the 'body' of the song. Dylan's supreme achievement is to weave so many resonant words and ideas around a musical thread or melodic structure that neither is compromised and therefore each is enhanced. In a sense feel that melody structures, limits, disciplines words; rarely the other way rouind.

I would love to ne musical enough to work in this way: which a methodology that perhaps explains why most of the very best songs are frm singer-songwriters. Even the paradigms of your popular musical affections: Cole Porter, Gerdhwin, Sammy Cahn and JImmy Van Heusen, latterly Randy Newman etc etc had a musical background to which of course they added certainly the wittiest, most stylish lyrics ever written. 'Making Whoopee', 'S'Wonderful', 'Georgia On My Mind', 'They can't Take That Away From', 'Let's Do it' etc etc are sublime works of art, popular, but still art by any standard (!).

I have always felt that my best hance of writing a genuinely memorable song would be to collaborate inter-actively with a musician song-writer whose strength may be more on the musics than on the lyrics. I would love to have a crack at a melody with no lyrics and try to interactively weave together a lyric to fit. This is harder than it looks as, not having such amelody available I have taken songs I admire and lvoe and tried to write new or alternative lyrics. I have done this with 'American Pie' (Don MacLean) and Universal Soldier (Buffy Sainte-Marie). Such exercises only increase one's admiration fo the distillation the from demands. One key difference is thatgin a poem we are trying to make as many words and phrases as resonant as possible: this overwhlems a Popular song - it needs perhjaps 3-4 highly resonant blends of words and music which are then re-inforced by repetition or extemporising. Typically of course what makes Dylan unique is that he throws all these 'rules' ujp in the air and produces new ways of using and demonstrating them.

Thanks again for you thoughts: it is very encouragng that for you the 2nd version is better: and the fact that the 'bridge' works for you in much the wayas I was trying to achiv\eve.

|Best

Z

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Zettel at 00:18 on 27 August 2018 Report this post

PS: Apoligies for all the typos - hit 'pos't before editing and of course one can't actually amend these comments.

Z

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Thomas Norman at 10:57 on 27 August 2018 Report this post

I'm sure this would work well as a popular song; rather than a pop song. For me it is also an excellent poem. The sentiment is clear but not overdone; as in most pop lyrics.

As I understand it a bridge is peculiar to pop and is usually instrumental; the so called 'middle eight'.

A beautiful piece be it poem or song.

Thomas.

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Zettel at 00:38 on 28 August 2018 Report this post

Thanks for the comments Tom: much appreciated: especially as trying something new is always a bit scary.

Zettel

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Zettel at 09:18 on 28 August 2018 Report this post

3rd and hopefully last version now posted
z

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James Graham at 20:56 on 28 August 2018 Report this post

it would have to be pared down even more and simplified if it were to become an actual performed song.

I'm not sure about this – even if I’m contradicting what I said before. Dylan’s song lyrics are well above the level of the average pop song; they’re performance poetry. They’re what rightly earned him a Nobel Prize. Maybe in the same category we could mention Leonard Cohen, or Tom Waits (who’s not so much to my taste). If their songs can be performed, so could yours. Don’t call it a ‘pop song’ – just a song. I’ll do a comment on your third version soon.

James.

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Thomas Norman at 08:29 on 29 August 2018 Report this post

I agree with James. Dylan is the undoubted master at the art, his songs have irregular lines and their efficacy is not in doubt. Think of classical song (through composed) and opera, these are performance works. I could easily put music to your lyrics/poem.

Thomas.

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V`yonne at 08:52 on 29 August 2018 Report this post

2nd one. I could almost hear Leonard Cohen's deep voice telling me that:

Memory is my lover now

I'll just say that for a song that is the version I prefer -- not that I listen much to songs. I'm more Classic FM

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Zettel at 12:26 on 29 August 2018 Report this post

Thanks everyone for the time, the thoughtfulness and the comments. (Why didn't I stick with the piano lessons grrr!).

best

Z

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James Graham at 20:46 on 29 August 2018 Report this post

One more comment. Version 3 reads even better. It’s good that you’ve eliminated some ‘and’s, ‘the’s and ‘but’s. One more – ‘With the passing time’. This is very good:

To trust to love to dare

– it’s now three simple parallel phrases. That ‘dare’ at the end, surprising but true, makes poetry of it. One line that’s perhaps better as it was: ‘Holding, held, all night through’. I’ve no special reason for preferring this, except that I think it sounds better.

I won’t go so far as to say this is as good as Dylan, but it’s not at all bad. If (a big ‘if’ I suppose) a singer/composer could be found to set it, and if the music were good enough, it would be very presentable. A singer/composer of an older generation, more likely. So many pop songs are about youth, but this would be best appreciated by seniors - male seniors especially - who would hear ‘Memory is my lover now’ and nod sadly. Or perhaps not so sadly: I’m sure you know that Plato quotes Socrates as saying, of the loss of desire, that it was like ‘being unchained from a lunatic’.

Well, trying something new can be scary. Worth it, though, if it succeeds!

James.

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Zettel at 02:21 on 02 September 2018 Report this post

Thanks James. Now er...how does it go....doh, re, me..........

Best

Zettel

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