Somewhere, not now, but then, there is a little boy that wants to be a comedian. If you asked him why he wanted to be a comedian, he might not be able to tell you. He would probably shrug and mention that he likes Morecambe and Wise because they seem so terribly happy (he would probably be at a loss to understand you if you tried to tell him that Morecambe & Wise were probably an exception to the rule with comedians in those days, and if you further boggled his little mind about the crippling depression that wracked the other humourists that he is enjoying as he grows up, he would politely nod in a vacant nonchalance he has since perfected - this is a child who, when told the facts of life, naively misunderstood, and for several years believed that you had to do put, erm, that, erm, there in the hospital, immediately before or during the birth, which seemed a little too intimate for his liking in front of all those doctors) and that he likes making people laugh (he has yet to grow out of this simple pleasure).
It is very easy to have dreams. It is astonishingly easy. You just need to think them. When they are depicted on the telly, the protagonist looks into the middle-distance and we see them with a fancy hairdo, spraytan, whitened teeth, and dressed in brightly-coloured, tight clothing, waving at a screaming audience in a glimmering television studio. Those are the sorts of daydreams I used to have at school.
Time plods on, and somewhere, the little boy becomes a boy and then a teenager and then discovers music. He takes it to his heart and learns to express himself in scribbled lyrics. If you asked him why he buried himself in music all of a sudden, he might not be able to tell you why. He would probably shrug and mention that he likes Crowded House because they seem so terribly happy (although if you tell him that the reality behind their outward hilarity was sometimes strained, and that tension and depression weren't always far away from the Crowded House camp, he would probably listen, interested) and songs seem to be a way of channelling feelings that he hadn't realised was possible.
When you connect with something that really reaches you, something that gets into your head and tickles your brain, your dreams start to become more grounded. Instead of that strange, vapid idea of "fame", you start to think more in terms of what it would mean to do something. Of what it would mean to you to do something.
Not much later, the teenager goes to see his favourite musician in concert. It's a bit of a jaunt, and along the way he gets his wallet stolen as a result of his own naivete, then avoids getting skinned & beaten in what was one of the roughest neighbourhoods in the city, whilst looking for the people who nicked it. He enjoys the concert and is inspired by it, and emerges with a fresh wave of ambition. If you asked him why he wanted to play guitar and sing all of a sudden, he would look you in the eye and say "Because I want to do it, because I believe I could do it." Within a few weeks, he learns a variety of chords from the back catalogue of his favourite band, and is not only playing their songs, but using chord structures to make his own.
You can see where this is going, no doubt, for as a reader, you are renowned for your skill with spotting a narrative. Chords were learned, songs were (very slowly) written, and eventually concerts were played. As he does these things, the "Because I want to do it, because I believe I could do it," is transformed, and he finds himself through his songwriting - he brings meaning to the songs in the same way that they bring meaning to him. He expresses himself. There were even a couple of bands and some appearances on local BBC radio. Then he rests. He is tired and has lost the spark for a time. After a period of stopping almost completely, he comes back, realises how much he misses writing and playing, and finds avenues now open to him to broadcast to more people than before.
The strange thing about the journey from there to here is that now, the need to be able to live has the ability to kick the music to one side where it sees fit. At a point where the man in this story has finally grown in maturity and experience, and has what he feels are some of the best ideas that he has ever had, and potentially has a bigger audience than he has ever had, every day brings with it a necessary distraction of duties to keep him from turning his thoughts and ideas into some sort of tangible thing. And he doesn't just want to do it for the people who are willing to listen, he wants to do it for himself, to prove he can do it, and because he will find it tremendously satisfying.
He doesn't know where to start, which is confusing, but there is also a fear now that wasn't there before. There is a cold, hard stone in his gut that makes him worry that he will always be an idiot, in a house, with the only company being that of his dreams, dreams no longer of brightly lit television studios and whitened teeth, but dreams of recording studios, musicians, new songs, playing with sound, quiet attentive music venues, and the love of it all.
He hopes against hope, and, drinking the last of his tea, goes to bed.
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