You Make a Fantastic Team.
Shane wrote a song, which he decided to sing for me at about 9:20 p.m. In spite of the late hour, I listened intently. Shane had written a very nice song – good lyrics, catchy tune.
“That face you are using makes me think that song isn’t any good,” he said.
“Sing the first part again,” I said.
He did, and I sang it back to him – hoping I was slightly more in tune than he’d been. I didn’t do a very good job.
Dylan came in from the room next door.
“Are we singing?” he asked.
“Have him sing it,” I said to Shane. “Sing the first line for him. Dylan, you repeat what Shane sings.”
Shane sang a line, slightly off tune. Dylan repeated it with perfect pitch. It sounded spectacular.
After singing the song through once, Dylan said to Shane, “I can’t write songs at all. This is the last song I wrote…” Then Dylan sang something, and rapped something, and the lyrics were about a tire in the woods and a kangaroo and they really didn’t make much sense.
“You guys need each other desperately,” I told them. “You make a fantastic team.”
Shane went to bed, and I put some laundry in the washer. When I came out of the laundry room (maybe three minutes later), I stopped to say goodnight to Dylan. He asked if I wanted to hear the song he’d written on his iPad.
“Sure,” I said. It was 9:45 p.m. And again, in spite of the late hour, I listened intently. It was electronic music with a catchy tune, no lyrics.
“That’s really nice,” I said. “It sounds familiar.”
“It’s background music,” Dylan said.
“Background music for what?”
“For Shane’s song,” he said.
I almost fell out of the bed. Now that he mentioned it, indeed it was Shane’s song.
“You have to play this for Shane,” I told him.
We went into Shane’s room, where he was supposed to be sleeping. In the dark I said, “Listen to this.”
The music started to play. Both boys started singing the beginning part of the song.
“Sing when I point to you,” Dylan said. The music continued. Dylan pointed. Shane started singing his song.
It was a perfect fit. Dylan started harmonizing a little. The song wasn’t quite finished, but the two of them, together, with the background music – they sounded like a boy band, right there, in Shane’s twin bed, just before 10:00 at night.
In less than an hour, they’d created a pop hit.
I just stood, and stared, and listened, and cried.