I often wonder of music plagiarism. George Harrison was sued for "My Sweet Lord," which sounded a lot like "He's So Fine" by the Chiffons. John Fogerty was sued for plagiarizing himself, writing a solo song that was allegedly similar to a Creedance Clearwater Revival song. There is bound to be redundancy in those seven or so chords, especially under the laws of music.

I have recently plagiarized myself. I got this new song churning, one about trees and love and friendship, and the chorus-like part is totally based on a section of an early tune of mine, called "Catholic Boy." Because that song is basically retired (I don't feel like singing about a crush I had on an unattainable Christian pop musician when I was freshman in college), and since it has some nice parts that I would like to play still, I'm gonna steal it from myself. It goes even better with the new song.

The new song almost ended the same way my Jail Song ended. The last verse starts off as the first verse did, but you change it up "unexpectedly" to give the song a conclusion. I ditched it, though, because it was too cheesy.

It's difficult to sing about the concept of "wishing" without using the words "me," "you," and "true." Especially a love song. In fact, I raped that song and forced it to be honest and not wishy-washy. "Song," I told it, "you are not a love story. You are about friendship, mistaken as love via infatuation. Don't sing about mutual wishes. Sing about being stupid then realizing that friends are better than lovers. Sing about the music."

So I'm more satisfied with it.

I look forward to being able to write a love song in the style of Lou Reed.

I think I was dehydrated all this time.

Jack would agree with me on the plagiarism issue: it's not a big deal. I thought I could marry his son one day. Considering that the love song I composed for him was about our time in jail together and how his life is shots of whiskey behind the wheel, my mind changed.

He heard the song for the first time. He liked it. Then I told him good-bye.

Now that's honesty.