Thursday night I hit up Steel City in Phoenixville to try out my new song, “Who Do You Love.” I don’t write many relationship/break up songs because there’s a list of them out there longer than time can remember and we all know how much I love originality. But I wrote this one thinking that there are more sides to the relationship coin than whether you are dating or not dating.
I think we’ve all fallen in love or in like or in infatuation with someone and shared the “Who Do You Love” experience of in-between-ness (if I can make that a word). The idea behind the song is that while the desire to be together with someone survives a multitude of ups and downs, the initial spark that got you hooked on each other has long since died. When that happens what you’re left with is a shell of relationship and a lot of coulda, woulda, shoulda’s.
When I sing the song and loop back to the refrain singing, “well who do you love/ cuz it’s not me,” the lyrics are addressing that helpless, wanting feeling. What do you do when you are in love with the idea of a person? Or even when you wish you could love them the way that you know they need to be loved… but it’s just not in you? Well if you ignore the truth and instead choose to hold on to the swiftly vaporizing passion of your relationship, it doesn’t take long for it to become something forced; something as animated and fake as a play or a charade.
Steel City has this thing where they give you 10 minutes on the stage or the duration of two songs. I started out with “If I Fall” thinking it would set some kind of standard for my music in case “Who Do You Love” completely bombed. But I ended up fudging on “If I Fall” and gathering more applause and attentive faces on “Who Do You Love.” I don’t know if the song was actually good or if they were just relieved to have heard something better than my first song, but I think “Who Do You Love” definitely has some recording potential. It’s always fun to test out a song. And I’m hoping to test out another one this coming Thursday. Stay tuned and hopefully I’ll see you there.
(Yay for open mics, for they are the test drive arenas for the singer/songwriter/performer.)
