After I had written that song, which helped me to put into words some of my feelings of deep loss and grief, I wanted to make up other songs.  I started to make up more and more songs, trying to put into words the roller coaster of emotions that I was feeling: the anguish, the anger, the powerlessness, the envy, the guilt that I was still alive when Sharon had died.  I seemed to go through the whole gamut of conflicting and overpowering feelings that sometimes threatened to overwhelm me as I tried to get on with my life each day.

I didn’t sit down at a desk to try to write a song.  The songs sometimes just “came to me” as I went for a walk or drove the car or worked in the garden or the allotment.  Often it was while I was walking; I would think of a phrase or two and then start to work on a song as I walked.  I would write down the words when I came back home and then work out the notes of the tune and write them down too, so that I wouldn’t lose it.

I remember making up songs on my holidays with Nik.  He must have thought it was strange that I lagged behind sometimes when we were out walking and sang songs to myself. He never seemed to worry about it though, so I carried on and it helped me to cope with things.  It was so important to me to have that as an outlet and it meant that the rest of the time I could at least put on a good front that I was doing OK.

Sometimes I didn’t write songs down straight away and I did forget them; I was cross with myself, because I didn’t want to lose any of these songs.  Some didn’t come to anything and some I sang and then forgot, but the songs that really said how I was feeling I wanted to keep and sing to Bob.  Then I would have them to sing to myself as I walked along and perhaps later I might share them with someone else.

* * *

I thought at the time that anyone could make up songs.  People tell me now that they can’t.  I think that maybe some people are more able to write songs, but it’s one of those things that is not expected of us in our culture. Children can do it because it’s OK for children to make up songs and poems.  When we become adults we are not expected to do it any more.  Some people write poems or find other ways of expressing themselves.  Some people write songs for a commercial market.  It seems a shame that we don’t use songs more to say how we feel, just for ourselves and the ones we care about.   We don’t think we can do it, so we don’t do it, and that’s a pity.

* * *

Since Sharon died, I have made up lots of songs, over fifty of them, and some poems as well.  Bob encouraged me and helped me to have the confidence to make up the songs and sing them out loud.  He helped me by listening to each one and encouraging me to say what it was about.   He would sing the song back to me and accompany it on the guitar or the piano, trying different styles till we were both happy with the way it sounded.  He is a very skilled musician and seemed to find the ‘right’ chords almost straight away.  I was very demanding that it should be just the way I wanted, the way I could hear it in my head.

Many times I came to Bob and said, “I’ve made up another song”.  I had worked on the words and the tune until I knew how I wanted it to sound.  I could just sing it to him and it had a shape already – perhaps verses and a chorus.  When he added chords it seemed to complete the process.  Between us we created a real song.

Sometimes I would come to Bob with ideas for a song and lots of difficult feelings that I couldn’t seem to put into words.  Then he would encourage me to play the different instruments and see what happened.  Sometimes I would come up with a phrase that seemed apt or poignant.  Bob would encourage me to develop the phrase and put words to the tune.  He would play chords to go with it and sing the song back to me. He would help me to give it shape, with verses, a chorus and a bridge to link it together. He would keep encouraging me with suggestions, till we both agreed that a song was “finished.”

Sometimes I went away and wrote more words on my own. Then we would record it on his studio recording system.  It might take quite a while to get the tracks right, and perhaps add extra sounds.  Of course when I sang wrong notes it would take longer! It was very satisfying to ‘finish’ a song and then listen to it.  To take away a finished song on a CD was very empowering.  It felt good.