This is one of my favorite verses from a song I wrote in the past few years. If you are acquainted with early 20th-century American poets, it may have a certain familiarity.
There’s a fork here in the road
And sadly, we will travel both
You go your way. I’ll go mine
But we’ll meet up in a better time
The first two lines of this verse were inspired by Robert Frost’s 1915 poem “The Road Not Taken.”
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both”
My gratitude for these lines goes beyond Frost, and I should acknowledge his inspiration, Edward Thomas. If you go down this rabbit hole a bit, you’ll find the poem leads to a rather sad ending.
In Frost’s version, the lament is that he could not take both roads. In my song, a couple was on a path together, but when the roads diverged, they went their separate ways. “And that,” as Frost says, “has made all the difference.”
I hint at the hope that the couple’s paths will cross again at some better time, but we know that once roads diverge, they rarely come back together.
I will talk about another form of inspiration that comes from being present, open, and aware.
In the late summer of 2022, I met someone who briefly became very important in my life. One day, I went to a duck pond for lunch. As I sat there, I thought of my friend. I took pictures of the pond and sent them along. Later that day, we danced in the kitchen and talked for hours. When I got home, I wrote a song about that day and everything that was said. Here is one of the verses from that song.
Clouds would dance, and fish would fly
While you hold little Winston tight
Love is never at first sight
We have to blink, but that’s alright
Some of the lines seem strange, and frankly, I’m not a huge fan of the rhyming scheme, but almost every word in the song was from our conversation or the pictures I sent. In the photo, you can see the clouds reflecting in the pond, which seemed to dance in the ripples. You can also see fish that appear to be swimming in the clouds. Hence the line about clouds dancing and fish flying. The last two lines of the verse speak to the fact that when we first met, I was not exactly present and wasn’t paying attention. It took a little time, but now the protagonist is fully invested, and that should be fine. I say “should be” because what you don’t see, and the beauty of writing songs is that the verse is written with minor chords, and the attentive listener would correctly suspect that everything is not fine.
The point is that inspiration can come from anywhere. It can be an early 20th-century poem or a conversation with a friend. Anything and everything I see around me in this coffee shop has the potential to be a song or a story. I find inspiration to be a fascinating subject, and I will have more to say about it. I would also like to hear your thoughts. If there is something in particular that inspires you, feel free to share it.
Henry James Morello 