Alex Turner - Songs Imagines

Stranger

*Listen to "Killing Me Softly With His Song" - Roberta Flack and
"Fireside"- Arctic Monkeys*

Liz parked her car on a side street and took her guitar out of the trunk. She lighted up a cigarette and started walking, staining the filter with her red lipstick.
Her platform heels click-clocked down the sidewalk on Melrose Avenue until she reached the studio. She was very early, for once; she would just go in and practice some parts until the rest of her band showed up. One of the three songs that they planned to record that day was still not convincing her. Maybe if she changed that A into an A Minor....

"You're good to go," the dude behind the counter told her when she checked in, "the other guys left not too long ago."
"What other guys?" Her band booked the studio for the week, starting that day.
"These guys who where here until yesterday. They had to do some quick editing, so they came back this morning, but the studio is all yours now."

She walked down the hallway, excited to be spending the week recording in the historic Electro-Vox Recording Studios. From 1931 to 1950s (and even beyond), this studio recorded all of the "airchecks" for NBC radio station.
Some of the artists who recorded here for the radio, or for TV and movies, where depicted on the pictures on the walls: Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Judy Garland and others.

As she walked towards the main rehearsal room she started to hear the sound of an acoustic guitar. She guessed someone from the other band was still there.
She walked closer and a warm baritone voice, deep and velvety, started singing, but quietly, like they were singing to themselves.

I can't explain but I wanna try
There's this image of you and I
And it goes dancing by
In the morning and in the night time

There's all these secrets that I can't keep
Like in my heart there's that hotel suite
And you lived there so long
It's kinda strange, now you're gone

She put her guitar case down next to her feet and she leaned with her back against the wall, right next to the door, which was left open.
She stood there to listen for a while.
That was a very good song, sorta sad and melancholic. This song was talking to her. About her.

I'm not sure if I should
Show you what I've found
Has it gone for good?
Or is it coming back around?
Isn't it hard to make up your mind?
When you're losing
And your fuse is fireside?

It immediately made her think of Del Schwartz, the guitarist of the Flying Cats. Her ex. The biggest love of her life.
He left her on what was an exceptionally rainy Tuesday night in Los Angeles, a couple of months back. 'To pursue his musical career' was the official reason; they were getting popular in the State. To pursue every hoe in California was probably the actual one.

It still hurt like a bitch. She was just now starting to come out of the funk, to get out of the house, to see people. She had been down bad. The perspective of spending some time with her bandmates –and old friends– making music, helped her with that. She came out of the darkness with a couple of new songs too.

But this song...this song that this mysterious guy was playing and singing with that warm honey voice, was taking her back there a little bit. It was killing her softly.
She felt like he was strumming her pain with his fingers, singing her life with his words.
He sang as if he knew her, in all her dark despair.

There's all those places we used to go
And I suspect you already know
But that place on memory lane you like still looks the same
But something about it's changed...