In grade school, I would spend hours plunking – with one finger – on an old, upright piano, creating tunes to go with my brilliant lyrics. The words, of course, weren’t as clever as I thought they were. In fact, they were terrible. But I didn’t know that, and so I wrote dozens, probably even hundreds of songs.
I learned to play guitar and became quite good at creating a melody and a lyric.
After high school, I hitch-hiked from Oklahoma to Los Angeles to seek my fortune in the music world. Every record producer I talked to was looking for catchy, three-minute songs that were suitable for endless play on the radio. My songs tended to be long and complex and did not appeal to anyone but me.
If there had been a positive word from anyone, perhaps I’d have gotten a job, any job, and stuck it out, searching for success. But hunger and discouragement overcame me. What I said (and I actually said this) was, “All the great songs have already been written, so why bother.” It was 1968.
Like Eeyore the donkey (It’s the only cloud in the sky and it’s drizzling right on me. Somehow, I’m not surprised.), I allowed depression to overpower me and headed back to Oklahoma, feeling like a failure.
I recently listened to an old cassette recording of 25 of my songs from back then and was stunned at how good they were. What I lacked was not talent, but endurance. Somewhere in LA there were producers and agents who would have been overjoyed to have such songs. If only the songwriter (me) had tried harder to find them and not been deterred by a few dozen rejections.
There is a childhood picture of my brother and me, taken outside a little house in Oklahoma. It is obvious from our faces that neither of us was in a happy mood. It was a bright day and the sun was causing us to squint. I can tell by the way I’m standing, there are stickers (tiny, ground-level thorns) in one of my bare feet.
I was crying and my brother, who was six years older, looked like he wanted to cry.
What occasioned this sudden ushering outside for a photo op, I have no idea. All I know is what I can see: two miserable kids standing in harsh sunlight.
My little-boy self, grimacing at the camera, could not have imagined that an elderly version of himself would someday look at that picture and smile. And that he would want to say to his younger self, don’t be Eeyore. Don’t give up easily. If life punches you, go down swinging, then get back up.
In 1959, not very far in your future, there is going to be a movie called A Hole in the Head. In it, Frank Sinatra and a child actor named Eddie Hodges are going to sing a song called High Hopes. Later on, in 1968 in Los Angeles, sing that song to yourself every single day. And believe it.
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