Escaping Reality

Chapter 35: Festering Fire

"Hell ya man, let's do this thing," I said as I rubbed my hands together like a boy scout trying to start a fire. The only problem was that I had never actually started this metaphorical fire. My rapping experience could pretty much be summed up with my short shower sessions or recorded iPhone tidbits.

"Alright sounds good, Gregg here is the producer for most of the songs and already has a beat laid down. All we gotta do is write the lyrics, maybe tamper with the beat just a little after the lyrics are finalized, and then we can record."

"Sounds easy enough," I said, surprised by how easy he made it sound.

David took me into the recording studio and showed me the beat they had already pre-recorded. It was pretty good, catchy enough that it would make up for less than stellar lyrics if necessary. I nodded my head along to the beat and tried to vibe to it or at least look like I was vibing to it. We listened to it a couple of times and then David took me over to the lyric table where we started working on the lyrics.

"What's the overarching topic?" I asked, trying to get a feel for how the whole process started.

"What do you think it should be?" David asked me as he twirled his pen between his fingers

"I dunno, I kind of like the idea of just living life to the fullest and not taking things too seriously. I think the song should paint a picture of what most people wish their life was like. And by painting that picture listeners can find a certain solace in listening to the song." I said.

He just looked at me for a second processing what I had just said before finally saying "Man what kind of music do you think I make" followed by a laugh. "You know what, why not, I'm down to try something new."

"Hey man, what do you think about titling the track 'The New American Dream'?" I asked

"Up to you boss, as long as you're paying me you can have full creative control, and can switch that feature to the main artist." He retaliated.

We sat in silence for an hour or so. The beat was playing softly in the room to help guide us but besides the scratch of our pens on the paper, the room was relatively silent. A few yellow legal pad pages later we had a rough outline.

"You're not too shabby at this whole thing," David said as we put our pencils down and leaning back in our chairs admiring the work we had done so far.

"What writing lyrics?" I asked

"Yeah"

"I like to think of my self as a storyteller I guess. Never really tried writing lyrics though," I responded, proud of myself but trying to remain humble.

"Aight we'll take a short break, order some wings and give the brains a lil break. What kind of wings do you like?"

"I'm not picky, I like whatever" I responded.

"Good answer," David said smiling.

He dialed up the nearest Wingstop and got a triple order of wings; Devils Spit, Honey BBQ, and Asian Zing. Additionally, he got a large order of the loaded fries which sounded like heaven at the moment.

"Wait, a triple order of wings. Isn't that like 90 wings, there's only four of us how are we ever going to eat that much" I said curiously.

"We can put them down like nobody's business," David said laughing, obviously he knew something that I did not.

We all sat around the couch watching some old school hip hop movie. David had an app that tracked the wing order on his phone and his face was glued to his screen. When the wings had been made and started their transit to "The Lab" David put his phone away, stood up, and licked his lips.