Page 39 of Wish You Knew
Declan never failed to deliver on expectation.
Scott: a little something I rustled up on my break
Mat: amazing what you can do when you’re not fucked up on coke
Scott: wanker
Mat: telling the truth though, aren’t I?
To some extent he was. There was a pile of other half-finished songs and lyrics which had come from the other night’s session, which weren’t quite as pure. None of them were as heartfelt as this. The words had poured out of me, almost vomiting over the page. I knew they’d need refining, but the concept was there.
And I knew the inspiration behind them.
She was currently with my aunt.
Scott: maybe. Dec, can you do something with this?
Declan: already thinking about it, gimme a couple of hours, I’ll send you a sample
Fuck I loved these guys. This was what made us tick, how we worked. We were all on a similar plane, vibing off each other, even if we weren’t in the same room. Excitement at actually recording the song zipped through me. Getting back to Manchester and into the studio couldn’t come soon enough.
Scott: looking forward to it already
Bobby: not much call for a drum beat here, is there? #Disappointed
He followed it up with a laughing emoji. I could already picture it being played live as well, and sadly for Bobby there wouldn’t need to be much involvement from him. We hadn’t really done much acoustic stuff before, preferring to keep the energy on a high. Maybe now was the time for us to mature, to grow up.
Scott: don’t worry, mate, I’ve got plenty of other material you can play around with
Bobby: excellent! Don’t keep me hanging
Declan: got something already, gonna hop off and record it…laters!
I itched to hear what he would come up with.
Scott: cool, speak soon
Satisfied with the exchange, I tossed the phone on the sofa. Creative adrenaline at its best, I grabbed the guitar again and messed around with some other chord phrases, knowing Declan would be doing the same.
More lyrics bubbled up, and I couldn’t get them down on paper quick enough. Most of them were utter shit and made no sense, but it was good to get them out. It helped structure my thoughts. When I read them back, they were definitely different to what I’d written before. If I stepped back and looked at them rationally, I’d basically written an album’s worth of love songs.
Trash Gun didn’t do that.
Ididn’t do that.
Rosie Tatton really had got under my skin.
Casting aside the guitar once more, I lay back on the sofa, laced my hands behind my head, and stared up at the white ceiling. A myriad of questions swirled around in my brain.
Could we make this work?
How could I get rid of my aunt and cousin to find out?
Did Rosie even want this?
The latter scared me the most. What if I’d got it all wrong and she didn’t want anything more than to keep our friends-with-benefits gig going.
She hadn’t dated anyone seriously in the past few months, at least not that I’d known about. I’d taken a few women out, nothing to write home about. Also, I hadn’t slept with anyone. Sure, I’d acted as if I had, and there were internet gossip stories to seemingly prove it - or disprove it, depending on your opinion.
