Last night I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Canadian Consulate for a private performance by Randy Bachman. If the name doesn’t ring a bell (which it didn’t with me either as I’m not such a music junkie) you’ll be as blindsided by this story as was I with the performance.
Randy (from Bachman-Turner Overdrive, The Guess Who?!) talked about how he came to write his songs – as in, what was going on in his life at the time – and then he’d begin playing these MEGA hits from his insanely familiar discography. Let’s put it this way, there wasn’t one single song that hadn’t been a #1 hit and that I didn’t know every word to!
Every time the story folded into the song I was blown away by the magnitude of it. It was like the guy had the Top 40 Midas touch! And then he shared something that was my biggest take-away of the evening. He told a story about a song he’d been out there pitching, but nobody was buying. For 5 years he’d pitched the song and for 5 years he’d been turned down. HE believed in the song… unfortunately, nobody else did. They all hated the “hook” line of the song.
Then, one day he was on stage performing and had to fill some time, so what did he do? He pulled out the song everybody hated and he began playing it. Sure enough, mid-performance he did change the hook line and — well, you know where this story is going — the crowd LOVED it!!! And, of course it turned out to be a #1 chart topper!
Moral of the fable: never give up on something you believe in, but be flexible enough to change with the tide. I created and pitched a TV show that’s just been passed on by Bravo, Lifetime, Style and CW. Urg. So, for now it will sit on the shelf and at some point down the road perhaps it’ll come out again, when the tide changes. It’s never goodbye for good… it’s just see ya later, for now.
In the infamous words of my husband, Marty Metro, “Good luck and be yourself!