At long last we are ready to share One Line with you all.
This is a song about a bard. If you aren’t into epic DnD tales, you can think of it as being about a high-flying person who has it all but the one thing they really wish for. ‘One line’ refers to the fact that they only have one string to their bow - in the case of this particular character, that is their music.
If you do enjoy an epic role-playing story or two then you might like to know that this is a song about a character from a character. The lyrics were written shortly after the demise of my late bard Archer il Viren (who the song refers to) and are from the point of view of my other character Lilta. Archer played electric guitar, in a place where there wasn’t really any such thing as an electric guitar. He used cutting words, glamour and wit to make his way. He made a deep impression on most people. Everyone but one. When you hear the epic guitar solos in One Line, know that Archer is playing to you from beyond the grave. If you listen carefully towards the end you might even hear him sing. Lilta plays bass, and you will hear his mournful solo before the bridge.
The following is a eulogy I wrote in Lilta’s hand. The music he makes at the end would undoubtedly be this song, One Line. Though my voice is a poor conduit, it is Lilta that sings this song of admiration and sadness.
He flew through our lives like a shooting star and was gone.
If of anyone, the words ‘live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful memory’ were an apt description, it was Archer il Viren.
Though he harassed me, rejected me, scorned me, and tortured me, and then left me this guitar to keep on doing all those things for him after he was gone, I will miss Archer every day that I live.
He lived in a blaze of willful thought, ever in battle against his heart. When I first met Archer, he was running away from home. I said to him,
‘What is there at home that has made you leave?’ and he told me,
‘Rais is at home, and I am going to get free of her. I am going to find someone else and go far away with them.’ And then next thing I knew, that someone else turned out to be my girlfriend Yaule, and the two of them disappeared off into the sunset.
You might wonder why I loved Archer, after all that. I can’t explain it.
It cannot be understood in words, what that man was. But perhaps it can be explained, as he would have explained it, in music. I think he made himself that way, because music was his soul, and he wanted it to be ours too. Perhaps if we listen hard enough, he will play to us still.
Kilarbi, lend me your soul in this hour, that I might find in my heart music worthy of preserving Archer’s memory.
