An Honest Duet

The unspoken side of being in partnership with a songwriter is this: Each day he climbs through the cave, into his own dark deep to spot his sharks, and search for the holiest cow that's walked his streets with its painted horns. He writes these into songs. His lightning bolts, his storms, all the things he’s never said to me. Meanwhile, I've told all, day by day, my thoughts on a tape that never seems to end, often repeating, often nasty, forgiving, and circular. I expect him to take it all and know it's a tape, not the truth.

And then once every few moons, he's ready to share the scripts he's been scripting. Every insecurity in verse. All his love letters looped in the choruses. And me, the editor, partner, lover, performer, sideman, co-creator, recording partner, co-parent, cheerleader, critic, business manager, with all my myriad hats, has to sit down and drink in these songs, with their hurt and their humor, and accept them. First as wife, then as the list of hatted characters, and figure out a way to respond. Without wounding the fragile bird of the artist, but needing to express my vulnerability. Am I the she? Is he the I? In which song did he take on a character, becoming someone he inhabited once or read about last month? In which song is the She a mere collage of all the women he's known, including me? Would I want him to veil himself to protect me? To hide any pain because he knows the heart of his first reader?

So I ask him one thing -- only to recognize the complexity of what it means for me to hear these songs, these unformed lumps of subconscious clay he's handed to me in a DropBox. This is not a new feeling, but one I must go through every few months with each new batch of songs. And I'm learning to hold these globs of wet dirt, press my thumb in here, scratch away some clay over there, round some of them smooth, adding moisture if I need to, and lean in to the multitude of it all. The unusual place we put each other. The writing partners who expose it all, then walk slowly onto the stage, under two yellow beams, in front of the quizzical and hungry eyes, to sing these words one by one, verse by verse in an honest duet.