Leave me alone, you little six-string bastard. It’s four in the morning!
Another Wake You Up Song hit me in the middle of the night. My songwriting brethren will understand what that means, as will my author friends and fellow tortured creatives. Like a calling, or more like a commandment, the muse comes forth when we are the least prepared for it, like deep in REM sleep or when our cell phones are dead. Song ideas, books, poems, and any manner of epiphany whine like needy little children, demanding attention, needling, mocking, and daring you to leave them unattended.
I don’t know if it’s me being an only child or just a flighty soul, but FOMO is a big deal.
The fear of missing out drives a fierce degree of creative output and flirts with burnout like an eighteen-year-old with a fake ID flirts with a bar fly.
I stand like a creature in waiting, wide awake in the gloaming and then hours later in the pinkness of pre-dawn. I stand poised with a guitar, pen, whiskey, and coffee, ignoring mirrors but feeling the weight of dark circles beneath my eyes. It doesn’t matter if I think I’m going to miss out on a song that will change my life, a book idea that may spark a second career, or the chance to simply drink a cold Shiner Bock with a friend at my favorite bar. I don’t want to miss anything.
So hear ye hear ye; lovers, friends, songs, books, and cool passing chords on the guitar; don’t leave me out!
I will go to the ends of the earth to be available to whatever life has in store. That sounds noble as I type it, if not slightly desperate, except for the voice inside my head that says, “Quit chasing everything, Elliott and catch something, for once.”
I can’t seem to affect the catching of much these days, but the chasing, that’s in my wheelhouse. I’m good at it. I enjoy it. And when I fall short of catching whatever I’m chasing, I just keep right on chasing. And maybe that’s for the best, like a dog who chases a car but luckily, never catches it.
I am not a deep sleeper, so I am made for the Wake You Up Song. I easily stir at the sound of lyrics and melodies banging around in my head, even when those sounds, as they so often are, turn out to be the clang of an industrious mouse among the dirty dishes in the sink. I keep a pad of paper by the bed, but I rarely use it because I usually sleep on the couch. But that’s OK, the couch is more comfortable, there’s paper there too, and my guitar is dangerously close.
I can’t say how it feels to let go of a good idea in trade for sleep because I don’t believe I’ve ever made that deal.
I don’t allow middle-of-the-night ideas, good or bad, to escape me. Before you laud me with any creative street-cred, let me admit that most of what I wake up to write could have waited ‘till morning or mid-afternoon, or in all reality, never have been written at all. But like little lottery tickets, the next couple of words written in the correct order may change everything. And you can’t win if you don’t play. I play!
I bet I’m not the only person, creative soul or not, to mercilessly fling myself into some form of Wake You Up Song. Late-night callings demand everyone’s attention.
They are a break from the norm, a ripple in the matrix.
The phone is not supposed to ring in the middle of the night, and we don’t expect doors to crack open or slam shut. The severe-weather radio does not generally go off on a late and loud rattle-your-bones tangent, nor does the old, fat dog. And most nights, the leftovers in the fridge, including the half-pack of Oreos on top, and the last drips of Pinot Grigio in the bottle on the counter, remain undisturbed between stretches of natural slumber.
But, still, there we all are, responding like Pavlov’s dog to signals from beyond our consciousness: voices, thoughts, prayers, songs, callings, and hunger. Hear them beg to you from somewhere in the ether.
“Don’t let me fade with the morning light. Don’t leave me to become diluted by the mundane affairs of tomorrow or allow the noises of convention and expectation to drown me out. Listen. Feel. Open your eyes! Drink me down, eat me up, write me, play me, save me, and for God’s sake, if nothing else, remember me.”
Write your own Wake Me Up Song the next time it comes around. I dare you. Do it in the middle of the night, after everything that should be already is.
Do it when fawns sleep in the tall grass and coyotes run the tree lines.
Do it when the birds go to nest, and the bats fly. Do it when shadows crawl the walls and the winds die down. Do it when you hear the freight train ten miles away and when loneliness is more of a warm hoodie than a heavy blanket. Do it when it doesn’t make any rational sense. Pry your eyes open, roll to your side until your bare feet tap the cold floor, and rise. Allow ridiculous odds to inspire you. Risk losing a good night’s sleep for the off chance of catching one single strand of starlight or winning the lottery of dreams.
Do that, and I’ll seem slightly less bombastic and crazy, and I’ll thank you for it. And you might stumble upon something new, and maybe you’ll thank me for that or curse me - no matter. It seems like a win-win for both of us.
It’s another wake you up song.
In the middle of the night song
When something just ain’t right, song
It won’t let you sleep
Try to keep your head down
Don’t breathe, don’t make a sound
And if that guitar doesn’t come around
You won’t have to sing another wake you up songI would love to hear what you thought about this essay and if it brought any personal memories or stories to mind. Please feel free to leave a comment. I’ll answer all of them. I would love to strike up a conversation about this piece and your thoughts. Please consider sharing this newsletter with a friend.
Thank you. - Mark
Love it!
At the height of the lockdowns almost two years ago, when it was still so uncertain when I would ever be able to collaborate with my fellow creatives in a theatre again, I went a little mad. Not Lady Macbeth roaming the halls in my nightgown mad, but the creative madness you describe above. It’s not as though I’m ever free of it, but having the directed focus of another project on the horizon allows me to rest a little easier at night. When I know what I’m acting in, or directing, or hired to write next my creative energy has its proverbial outlet and sleep may come. But when that was all taken away I spent weeks filling journals and eventually a plastic storage bin of journals. I determined what I had to offer the world from isolation was to lead a renaissance of wit. Comedy had become about approval more than humor, altogether too divisive and predictable at the same time. It was less intelligent and more pandering. Where were the modern-day Oscar Wildes? The scintillating intellects with their rapier wits? I read a sentence about Mark Twain. “Mark Twain is an American humorist.” And I thought, “That’s it!” I’ll be an American humorist…locked in my home. I wanted to reach people first through my writing and then with my voice. Self-publishing on a website, parlayed into a podcast. Wit Soup. I secured all the socials under Wit Soup. I paid for my domain. I even developed a logo which filled another plastic storage bin with paper, markers, and a million different designs. Then I booked my next gig and dropped it all. Wit Soup sits in bins in my closet. Maybe I’ll be the next Erma Bombeck, or maybe Wit Soup was just “Another Wake You Up Song”. Only time will tell. But it got me through, and kept me on this side of crazy. Whatever side that is. And it gave me some of my favorite nights of drinking, where you’re drinking and writing and drinking and writing, and then it’s morning so you probably should sleep, so you doze off on the sofa, and when you wake up it’s still morning and there’s still more writing to do…so the logical thing to do is…drink! It’s the most like Tennessee Williams I ever feel. I haven’t had one of those nights into mornings in a while, I guess because I haven’t needed one. Wit Soup is in the closet, and I have projects on my plate. But one of those projects involves writing, so those nights into mornings are in my future. But I’m OK with that…because I know you will be awake to bounce ideas off of at 2AM. 🤣