Bethany, Blackbeard's True Love

Half a year ago I half wrote a song called "Black Beard Falls in Love." I made a demo recording in Chopper's basement with half hearted lyrics. I spent the days before the session researching Black Beard the pirate and how I could fit him into a future Rocktopus song. I felt strongly about his flag, in which he stabs a heart with a spear. I wondered, has Black Beard ever been in love? I wanted to romanticize the story with this burning image of his flag. I scrambled to write lyrics knowing that the time would come soon to record them. In the end I abandoned all historical knowledge and made myself Black Beard in a self deprecating song. A song about a pirate, and evil man who wrongs people wherever he goes. He meets a girl named Bethany on the coast of North Carolina and she changes his life. "To Nassau," he promises to take her where they can eat "Mangoes under the sun." But instead of hanging up his pirating and joining the girl he loves, he sets back to sea, "Cursing the Sea," for the possessing his mind and distancing him from the girl he loves. Through the song, Black Beard never never realizes his mistake, but continues to hold hate in his heart for a love he lost, or as I see it, he chose to lose.
I really liked this song, but it wasn't quite silly enough for the Rocktopus, a little too deep. Once Chris heard it, he separated the melody from the pirate lore and sea theme and said that it could be a good Midwest Beat song.
I played the song a few times for the Beat and they liked it instantly, but immediately offered the criticism to change the words and make them as "little aquatic themed as possible."
This I agreed and figured to be as easy as pumpkin pie. Four months have passed since then, and the song remained a blank slate with just a melody and vague composition. It hasn't even been revisited until recently when we decided to record it in the studio session on Nov. 19, 2009. Tomorrow.
In my monkey mind, I have ideas orbiting as far as Pluto, as indecisive as an electron manifesting as a wave or particle to quantum physicist. They need to be rounded up like a flock of sheep. And the most effective Sheppard is a deadline. As it approaches, my conscious mind's Sheppard crook makes my sub conscious tremble with fear.
On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday this week, I have worked with fervor and the Beat, recording demos, writing lyrics, and even arranging songs we do not know but will record for a record tomorrow. It seems that our whole band is wired with the same shepherding technique. Where as last week and a month before we knew what songs to record, they remained in pieces, not composed, not lyrics, no harmonies, an outright mess. Including the song "Bethany," which is the re-incarnation of "Black Beard Falls in Love."
I just couldn't wrap my mind around a new concept that didn't involve a "Sea Theme," much less any inspiration until yesterday when I completed the lyrics. The only thing that stood the test of time with this song is the opening line "Oh Bethany, where have you been all my life?" that Black Beard himself declared when he saw the beautiful mistress. I have about 6 pages in my notebook of different topics I didn't use from: Bethany is a metaphor for enlightenment, to a girl that walks in and out of a bar with out anyone else noticing. I abandoned them all. J-man spotting me with a pen to my mouth and eyes lost in another place would ask me, "where's Bethany now?" and I would give him "Well, this guy wants Bethany, she represents enlightenment, but he is not getting off his barstool."
"where's Bethany now?" he would ask again, and I would give him a different answer again "she is the farmer's wife in the 1930's during the dust bowl." Leaping again, Bethany finally arrived right where she always belonged. In Southern Illinois, last June, when the Midwest Beat played in Carbondale and the spirit of Bethany joined us. We along with 30 other people drove to the middle of nowhere to cool off in the most precious little lake until 4 in the morning on a 100 degree night. "Midnight Summer New Moon," the only light was the stars that shot to the earth over and over as we swam to the middle of the lake. "The stars fall, oh when my Bethany smiles."
So it seems after all this time getting away, we still remain "in the water, wade and wonder...could this be for real?" Black Beard's regretfull pains have bound his love for Bethany to an aquatic themed song forever.