I remember the moment when I began hating my music. I’d stood with an acoustic guitar off to one side of the lead vocalist. Sporadic hand-clapping rippled from the audience. The hotel half-filled. Couples mostly. The band glanced around at each other. A song with lyrics I wrote years ago started. Lyrics used to come to me back then, the way some people describe visions. One second my fingertips tapping to tunes the band gave me like heartbeats in a small animal. Then I’d write the words in crooked lines across paper. Later I sang them inside rooms, lyrics and guitar throbbing dully off walls.  

Something fell out of me that night. I played on, strings blunt under fingers. The band continued, at times their eyes half-closed as if mesmerised by the surges of music. Our songs used to break over me like a swell in the ocean, so hard I expected notes to catch in my clothes, stay on my skin, chiming and ringing if I brushed a wall.

“What happened out there?” Lance the drummer said. We crammed around a table with baskets of chips and beer puddles. “Got a bit mechanical? Not like we’re playing a wedding.” I shrugged. Looked towards old posters peeling off the wall. Posters listing tour dates long ago. I asked our lead vocalist Rendell what happened to all those musicians. He stared at the torn and dog-eared sheets.  

“Maybe out there selling real estate. Washing dishes. Or robbing stores.” 

I used to write lyrics in housing I shared. Often in bedrooms with cramping walls and dust whirling in angles of sunshine. Sometimes wrote the words in light so grainy it was like my eyesight failed. I often wrote angrily, diatribes against political systems, protesting poisoning of environments or layering my hatred of government over tunes. At times Lance looked at me dismayed. Warned we’d alienate our audience with such cynical lyrics. Drive away people who came to our shows to dance long working days from their bodies.

Simone joined the band as we toured Melbourne’s suburbs. She’d auditioned in a bar we played regularly. A violinist, her body skewed and curved playing songs. I wasn’t sure where a violin fitted in. Was there a place for the slowly stroked music to go, the skidding, rapidly played pieces? But with time her music entered me so I felt it humming and caressing hours later. I glanced across the room at our lead singer. He nodded along, squeezing eyes shut during crescendos.

“I’m sold,” Lance said.

“I do backing vocals too,” Simone said.  The violin bow dangled from her hand.

We rehearsed in a pool room. Under a ceiling fan blurring shadows over us. Rendell said the felt laid on tables helped acoustics. Heat curdled as we played, perspiration dampening backs of shirts. Lance halted us occasionally, demanding we tighten a song. At times the music trailed off as if hurrying away. Eventually, Lance bowed exhausted over drums, hanging so clumps of hair tipped over his face. Simone eased her violin into the case. 

Later we toured country towns. In our van, we drove past wheat fields straining sideways with wind. At our first performance, we played in front of twenty people. Three songs in, six walked out. Someone said we shouldn’t have chosen a night when football was playing up the road. I’d seen the aura of light above the sports ground, light rain gusting through it like steam. People traipsed up the road in team scarves. The sounds of the game drifted to me, collision of shoulders, bodies crunching on hard ground, umpire whistles tweeting. 

Simone offered to sing. The audience had ignored us, huddling into conversations. Rendell passed her the microphone, announcing he was taking a break. When she started couples stood, turning dance steps slowly in front of us. Her voice folded over the dancers. I felt it in air, the way love or anger can be sensed in rooms, feelings left behind by people the way dirty glasses or burning cigarettes in ashtrays are deserted. She sang so that people looked at her as if she’d physically touched them. After that Rendell began slipping off stage during her singing. He’d stopped belonging in those moments.

“Don’t ask me to do backing vocals for Simone,” he muttered. “I don’t do backing.”  

We played in towns. Towns almost abandoned under the grinding heat of droughts. Towns one-quarter washed away following downpours where panicked cows floundered down surging waters. Towns sons and daughters gave up on, catching once-a-week trains to new lives of university degrees and jobs packing mail orders. We stood on timber stages in halls. Simone toned down my bitter lyrics. Inserted words to clap to, rather than inspire revolutions. People drifted out of the organic produce displays when we performed at farmer’s markets. Simone’s violin called to them. They stopped, concentrating. Kids spun circles to her music like eddies of breeze, except turning bright clothes instead of dust. I imagined Simone’s voice reaching the next town. How might it sound? Maybe like church bells from a long way off.

Lance decided a video should be filmed. We discussed it in the dining room of the hotel we’d stayed in. We’d ordered whiskey after whiskey, bar staff watching glumly, willing us to return to our accommodation. We’d take turns to film the band walking through a market, blending shots of the slate grey river and people following us. Simone walking out front in an off-the-shoulder top, her voice powerful enough to turn back changes in the weather.

“I’ll film it,” Rendell said. “I don’t want to be seen in a video that looks like a nature walk anyway.”

We became quiet. Lance stood drunkenly, balancing against a chair. Staff swooped on the table, rattling plates together, wrapping up the tablecloth. Lance zig zagged ahead. I caught up with Rendell in the car park. Simone passed us, glancing in our direction.  

“Why are you coming out here?” I asked Rendell. “Feels like minus three degrees.”

“Need a smoke,” he said. His voice changed, breaking and dry. “I started this band you know. Remember playing in my garage? People keep gym equipment and cars in garages. We had music. What am I now? The band accountant?” Rendell lifted a cigarette to lips. It trembled before lighting. Smoke swished into him. I tasted it too, waxy and bitter, on teeth and in lungs, reminding me of cravings and its stink in shirts from my fifteen-a-day habit years ago. “The band will need to decide. Whose voice? Simone’s or mine? You’re the one that writes lyrics wanting to tear down society. It’s my voice that cuts holes in air for those words.” Rendell smoked down to the butt. Smoke hazed from his mouth. “What do we do?” he added. “Secret ballot? Sing on a karaoke night and see who gets more applause?” He tossed the butt and sparks skidded from it. “You know how tough it’s been. Finding bookings. Doing deals so we get rooms and payments. I’m the cloth of this band. What holds it together. Simone should join a 1970s revival band.” 

Rendell hunched shoulders against the cold and walked away. Gravel crackled under his shoes. I listened to him plodding upstairs, keys tinkling and a door grinding open. A few moments later I followed. In front of me a door opened and warmth wafted out.

“Talk to Rendell did you?” Simone said. “Was it a counselling session? Maybe you need one after that.” She smiled slightly. “Let’s have a final glass. The mini-bar offered chips and chocolate but the wine won.” I walked in and crossed to her couch. Air gusted warmly and I breathed its weight. Simone poured me a glass. “Does he hate me? Thinks I’m taking his place in the band?”

“I guess the music is like real estate to him. He lives in it. It’s his address. Where he eats and sleeps. He only visits other places. He always returns to the music.” Simone eased off shoes and sat on the couch, curling up legs. I gently touched her foot, in the warm circle of her arch, where skin padded. A secret intimacy lifted between us. A smile shadowed her. She leant into me, kissing hard, fingers cupping my face.               

I felt the pooled warmth of her belly. How lightly she lay in my arms. The grooves of ribs. When she pressed her fingers fiercely into my shoulders my body juddered like pipes. Jammed my head back into the pillow and everything streaked, shapes running in a child’s watercolor. I cried out loudly, my throat burning with salt and rawness. Her eyes lay close to mine and I saw the flinting of overhead lights in her irises.

Knocking cracked across my door. I rolled out of bed, pushing clumps of hair from eyes. Opened it to Rendell, leaning against the frame. He looked past me, gaze circling the room.

“On your own? When did you get back here? Thought you’d be downstairs for a coffee. A few espressos might camouflage the nicotine on your teeth.” I dragged my t-shirt off, slinging it over the back of a chair. Took out a clean one, burrowing through insides so light briefly became soft and muted. I asked him to put some music to his insults, maybe we’d create a top ten hit. 

“So you and I are in the car park last night. I’m telling you how I feel and suggesting Simone may not be right for the band. What do you do? Consummate your contempt for what I told you?”

“Did you follow me?” I said. “Put a microchip in my neck?”

Rendell glanced at me spitefully and pivoted away. He plunged downstairs, shoes slapping over the hollow steps.    

We drove to the next town. Log trucks blustered past the other way. Splinters of bark pattered our windscreen. We stared out windows not speaking. Towards the end of the trip Lance glanced around us. Asked if anyone else felt the tension. Said it’d settled inside the van like a bad cooking smell. No one replied.

We parked in town. Hauled out speakers and lugged drums inside. Mechanically worked through sound checks. I visited the bar afterwards. Gulped a scotch that cut through me like sword-swallowing. I knew Simone approached, either the ease of her walk or the scent dabbed to her neck. She grabbed my arm harder than she had to.

“Did you say something to Rendell?” She sneered, her expression hollowing me out. “Boasted about how you got together with me? Is that some male conquest thing?”

“I never…” I began but she cut me off.

Soulless. That’s how Lance described our performance that night. A theme introducing a quiz show contained more emotion. The sound of brushing teeth offered better melody. He said the crowd wouldn’t even tap a foot to our music. Lance stood from the drums. I’d forgotten how anaemic he appeared when doused in stage light.

“Except Simone,” he added. “Your voice and violin. The light and dark of every note we played.”  

We packed our gear. I took my guitar to the hotel room, wanting to be alone. I lay on the bed, propped up to see outside. Headlights ghosted by. I cradled the guitar, trying to force new lyrics, searching for a first word, a feeling that could only be described by music. But there was nothing. Only the silence people unmoved by music must feel. And now I was one of them.

I knew Rendell knocked. The same way it banged last time, moving left to right. How that hard rapping seemed to contain his voice the way he spoke in the carpark, pounding and resentful. I opened the door.

“It’s over,” he said. His breath scalded me. “You’re out of the band. We’re taking a new direction. No more tear the house down lyrics. No more anarchy or whatever you’re on about. We’re giving people a good time. Not sending them away with lyrics leaving them taking anti-depressants.”

I stood looking at him. Heard the muddied laughter of bar staff drifting up.

“You,” I said. The guy whose voice was leaving holes in air for my lyrics. You’re going to be performing…what? Jingles?”

“It’s worth it,” Rendell said. “You betrayed me. Now I’m doing the betrayal. You thought there was a voice for your lyrics? Keep your words. I’m ditching you and your lyrics. Don’t bother Simone either. She’ll never sing a word you’ve written again.”                     

I opened the window. Just enough so that morning sounds drifted up the way heat does. From my room, I watched the van loaded, how it sagged as speakers piled in. I saw Lance stride to the driver’s seat. Followed Rendell cramming the van’s rear doors closed. Noticed Simone straining to carry the violin case. As the van’s motor stuttered, I defiantly picked up the guitar, closing eyes so that those lyrics might come. But there was nothing. Not a single word.          

– Peter Farrar