Thing a Week 17: I Will
Easing back in with a Beatles cover this week. This song has been floating around in my head for quite a while, who knows why – maybe I’m in love. I think this may be the sweetest love song ever written, so I’ve recorded it without any winking or irony or irreverence. Just straight ahead sappy. And say what you want about Paul, but it takes guts to write a line like “Love you forever and forever, love you with all my heart” and never look back.
PRESENT DAY JOCO SAYS: I still love this song. It’s a near perfect example of that Tin Pan Alley form, simple verse with a repeated last line instead of a chorus, a charming middle 8 that returns as an end tag. It’s stuff like this that makes me a Paul guy - he’s a sap and a sucker, but he’s a sap and a sucker with serious intent and forethought. He built this thing this way on purpose. Or at least he had the sense (or lack of sense or WHATEVER) to not ruin the good things that fell out of him. Also pretty sure the lyrics made me think of my daughter (and still do).
In some ways this was kind of lame, being all I was able to manage that week, but I don’t think it’s a total cop out. I was still in a down place, and would be for a couple weeks more (spoiler alert: the week to come was yet another cheat). I guess I still find it very grounding to learn, play and record a cover of a song I love. It’s productive. I get to think really closely about someone else’s process and my own. My comment about his “love you forever” line still stands - I think about that sort of thing a lot. Where do people get off writing cliches like that and LEAVING THEM IN? Whenever I start feeling sorry for myself about how I can’t make the lyrics good (which happens the moment I start writing), it helps to recall all the great songs that have lyrics I wouldn’t even write down, let alone put in a song that I show to the world. Relax Coulton. It doesn’t need to be a multi-layer, funny-sad puzzle every time.
Paradoxically, so much of this project was for me about learning to lower my standards enough to let things happen - something I still struggle with. We all tend to imagine that great things come from people doing great things, but I think most of the time great things come from people just fucking around.
You can find more info on this song, a store where you can listen to everything, and also other stuff at jonathancoulton.com
