Your Cheatin' Heart – Wayne 8

[For back story see lower numbers in archive]

Cath was rattling through a long list of possible interviews that Wayne could take if he wanted to pull his finger out and raise his head some. Unfortunately, right now, Wayne did not want to raise his head. Partly it was a genuine health related problem – he was a little hung over, and the recent lack of partying meant being a little hung over had acquired the power to drive his productivity into a brick wall. Gone were the days of beer, wine and whisky until the early hours, indeed, he reminded himself, gone were the bars, the people and the glassware itself, but this had been a couple of bottles shared over the video link with Dave and dammit he was still feeling rough.

He gazed at the label on the empty bottle to find out if the alcoholic content was above average for such a drink. He decided it was it was, but it wasn’t that far above average for his own usual purposes. There again, he thought, being honest with himself, he still couldn’t actually focus that well on the blurb next to it – which last night Dave explained contained the key to why craft beer was so good – so perhaps the alcoholic content was actually bigger than he thought and he just couldn’t read it.

“The BBC are doing another ‘thanks to the frontline service workers’ music montage,” Cath was saying, “and I can get you in front of them if you fancy doing a line or verse or two across video.”

“Wh-what? How?”

“I reckon they’ll tell you the song and key and maybe give you the music,” she went on, “all you need to do is sing your bit – or maybe the whole song – and they’ll edit you all together.”

“Oh,” said Wayne.

“Not for you?” asked Cath.

“It’s just you watch those things and shout out who’s there and then it’ll be like me there and people will either not know me or wonder why the hell I’m doing it.”

“New audience though,” countered Cath.

“What’s the song?” asked Wayne.

“They haven’t said yet. But the producer said it might be something Eurovision-y, cos that programme went down so well.”

“Eurovision?” scoffed Wayne, “Seriously? At least Foo Fighters had some credibility. Not like any of this stuff has been written for the times, is it? I reckon you just end up with a load of sentimental rubbish.”

“Gets you seen,” said Cath, “and sentimental rubbish is big at the moment, really big. You seen your Facebook stream lately?”

“Nah,” said Wayne.

“You’ve picked up a hell fo a lot of new followers by doing your favourite ten albums and individual tracks.”

“I’ve done that?”

“Well,” said Cath, with hardly a pause, “I did it for you but it’s been really effective.”

“So what were my favourite?”

“They were pretty sentimental,” said Cath. “I’ll email your list to you for reference. Basically you’ve had a lot of time to think about everyone you’re grateful to influence and inspiration-wise and everyone is loving it. You’re also demonstrating your musical roots and your wide listening tastes.”

“Did I listen to anything classical?”

“I’ll send you the list.”

“Cath..!?”

So what shall I say to the BBC?”

“Do they actually want me to sing?”

“I can make them actually want you to sing.”

“But I don’t sing, do I? Not like everyone else, that’s not my thing. My stuff isn’t singing. So what am I meant to do?”

“Your interpretation,” said Cath, “Gives them credibility.”

“They get credible and I get sentimental,” muttered Wayne. “Superb. Find out the track first and then I’ll think about it.”

“Great, fab, excellent-o,” said Cath, ticking something else off her list. “Now, do you want to do a ‘live from your living room’ track for Toby and Giles?”

“Who the hell are they?”

“You Tube influencers, millions of followers, right up our street.”

The conversation continued and Cath could see that Wayne was becoming less and less enthusiastic about the whole thing as they went along, so she gradually reigned her own enthusiasm in and reserve the final few opportunities for their next call. 

When she signed off, congratulating them both for such a productive call, Wayne sighed and cast around for some paracetamol. Then he picked up the guitar from the side of the bed, tuned it as best he could to the new app on his mobile phone, and practiced going from G to C to D and back as smoothly as he could. He was getting better, even though somehow he felt like he was cheating on someone.