Many years ago, before I knew any better, I made a big mistake. I’ve regretted it ever since, but there’s not much I can do to rectify it. Every time I hear this mistake it haunts me. I kick myself for being so stupid, but you know what they say, “What ya’ don’t know, ya’ don’t know.”

So opens this week’s confession. I write this post to reveal all so that, per chance, none of you out there will ever make the same and that you may all learn from mine. What was that mistake that haunts me to this day? I’ll tell you now. I wrote a beautiful song with a 2 octave range.

Whew! There. I said it. In the hopes of thoroughly cleansing my soul here and now, I’m going to analyze this mistake right in front of you and even play it for you – all in the hopes that it may never happen again.

I remember the day I made it like it was yesterday.

But it wasn’t yesterday; it was 1975. I was writing the score for the Broadway musical, King Of Hearts. Came the day I was to write the love song for the show. I got up early in the morning, did my exercises faithfully, cleaned the house, turned off the phones and walled myself into my studio to spend the day exploring this most important moment.

In all musicals, this song, the love song, is huge. This is where many of the great songs come from in our musical history. In each musical, this song is the essence of the love story of the play. It’s often reprised over and over throughout the piece and provides always a great opportunity to write a smashing song that usually has great life far beyond the musical itself.

Think “If I Loved You” from Carousel or “Send In The Clowns” from A Little Night Music, “If Ever I Would Leave You” from Camelot or “Some Enchanted Evening” from South Pacific. The list goes on and on.

We had decided that I should write the music first. Melody, in this case, is the leading component. The song must have a wonderful soaring and memorable line to get inside the audience’s hearts, grab them, and never let go.

We had discussed at length the complex emotions of the young girl character who was to sing it, I knew the dramatic circumstances around the song and we had even outlined the ideas behind the lyrics – the fears of first entering into young love, the innocence and vulnerability of this particular character, the excitement and abandonment that she feels despite her fears and the unabashed wonder of it all.

The lyrics would be puzzle-fit into the song once the melody and chord progression were done. I knew this was a song I wanted to write on the piano, though most of the music for King Of Hearts was written on guitar. I already had a chord progression that I felt captured the essence of the song.

I was so full, so ready to write, so in the moment that the verse just popped out within the first hour in full bloom. My confidence soared! I had the beginnings of one of those great songs. Now to the B section. Now I wanted it to really soar.

I got carried away in my emotions and for an orchestra, I believe to this day I wrote a beautiful song. The trouble was, I wasn’t writing the song for an orchestra; I was writing the song for the human voice. But I was too young and too inexperienced at the time to look at all the aspects – the technical as well as the emotional.

I played the yet to be lyricised song for my collaborators, director, book-writer and lyricist. They all agreed that this would work perfectly into the show. Jacob Brackman, the lyricist, went off for a long weekend and came up with a beautifully crafted lyric that fit my melody like a glove and the moment to a “T”.

We knew we had a winner and went into rehearsal with a wonderful score and script that was a total joy to develop.

Trouble was, the girl who was playing the lead, our young girl, couldn’t sing the love song. It was just too rangy. Either the verse sounded great but the end was too high for her or the end was lovely, but the verse was too low.

Over the next year of the development of that show I must have written 10 different arrangements of that song. We tried everything.  We “cheated” the low notes – replacing them with higher ones to shorten the ranginess of the song. That helped a bit, but I was sad that the song had lost a little something in its depth, in its grace and originality of melody.

We tried cleverly lowering the key at the beginning of the B section to further shorten the range and that enabled the singer to sing the song, but now it sounded like two different songs to me.

Let me also say that everybody loved the song, staff, critics, audiences. It was a gorgeous and wildly successful moment in our show.  People laughed and cried and were deeply touched and, sadly, most people would say of the poor actress, “Get another singer”. But, of course, it wasn’t her fault; it was mine.

One octave is enough. In a pop song I now try to keep it even shorter so that the voice stays hot all the time in the song. Now when I write a song, once I’ve got the basic start of a good melody, I immediately check the range. If it’s too large, I throw it out or change it. I will even mark the piano keys with a red china marker to keep reminding myself of the limits as I write.

I know that for every note above the octave range, I lose thousands of potential singers. Once a song hits 12-13 full steps the song takes its deserved place in obscurity. It can’t be done by the normal singer.

The song, of course, never worked to its full potential. The singers were always criticized when it should have been me. I’m sure many people bought the sheet music when it first came out, tried it out and gave up in frustration. The song still sells, but not particularly well.

Sorta Happy Ending: Years later I was working with a young singer who had had a successful career in opera and was crossing over into some musical work. She fell in love with the song and asked if she could sing it in her club act. I gave it to her with the usual trepidation and set of frustration warnings. I knew it would not end up in the act.

I was wrong again. She took it to the moon – both on an emotional level and on a technical level. She was so good that I married her.  Luckily for me I now have a wife who is not only a great singer but more importantly to this story, has more than a 3 octave range and has been able to save my bum. It’s not the first time she’s saved me, nor probably will it be the last.

She sang the song for years, had the voice and range to give it its undeserved due and, I must admit, pleased me to no end. Finally someone came along who could do the song justice. Finally someone came along and wiped the egg off my face – finally giving the song life and letting it have its moment, pulling it from its obscurity.

I am ever grateful.

Here. Give it a listen. Try to sing it if you like. Good luck. Click here.

Nothing Only Love
The Love Song from King Of Hearts

Music And Lyrics by Peter Link and Jacob Brackman
Sung by Julia Wade

Some people say it all ends sadly
I’ll have to pay with tears in time
Prob’ly I should beware
But I don’t think I care
Cause nothing matters
Nothing only love

Soon you’ll know all my secret places
I’ll have lost all my mystery then
How can then matter now
I can’t stop anyhow
When nothing matters
Nothing only love

The sky may fall but I don’t care
The light may fail,
But it doesn’t matter
The wind may blow me anywhere
But I don’t care
Cause it doesn’t matter
My hands may shake
My dreams may shatter
My heart may break
But it doesn’t matter
No nothing does

No no nothing matters
Nothing only love
No nothing only love
Nothing only love

Minutes ago my mind was racing
Now all my worries feel so small
Now there’s just you and me
And in your eyes I see
That nothing matters
Nothing only love

The moon may crack
The sea may boil
The song may die
But it doesn’t matter
The river may carry me anywhere
But I don’t care
Cause it doesn’t matter
My hands may shake
My dreams may shatter
My heart may break
But it doesn’t matter
No nothing does

No no nothing matters
Nothing only love
No nothing only love
Nothing only love