Do we only exist in memories?
Story and notes on the song "Love Is Memory".
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Lyrics
If I were just a dream, would you remember me?
Would you try to tell me everything that happened?
Love is memory, the only thing you see.
Am I just a dream and nothing ever happened?
This is terminal.
Everyone you’ve ever known.
The ink is permanent when you forget.
Am I one or ninety-nine? There’s a difference in your eyes.
If love is memory, oh God I hope you remember me.
One or ninety-nine, a reflection in your eye.
Love is memory, you left it all to remember me.
Am I just a dream, will I still be me?
Not sure I want to see, everything that happened.
Love is memory, the only thing that’s me.
Will you still love me after everything that happened?
Am I one or ninety-nine? There’s a difference in your eyes.
If love is memory, oh God I hope you remember me.
One or ninety-nine, a reflection in your eye.
Love is memory, you left it all to remember me.
You left it all to remember me.
You left it all to remember me.
This is terminal.
Everyone you’ve ever known.
The ink is permanent when you forget.
Am I one or ninety-nine? There’s a difference in your eyes.
If love is memory, oh God I hope you remember me.
One or ninety-nine, a reflection in your eye.
Love is memory, you left it all to remember me.
You left it all to remember me.
You left it all to remember me.
Song Notes
My mother has Alzheimer’s disease. How’s that for starting off on a good note?
Sorry, but it’s part of the story. I realized recently that one day, she very likely will forget who I am. Yeah, that realization freaked me out quite a bit and it was the initial thinking behind the first lyrics to this song.
As I pondered the significance of memory I started thinking about just how profound and fundamental it is to our reality. Memory is kind of… everything. If and when my mother forgets me and who I am, I will, in a way, cease to exist in her mind and in her life.
I remember taking an intro to psychology course in college and watching a documentary on Clive Wearing. It impacted me so much I still remember his name. Due to a medical condition, he lost the ability to create new memories. So, his life became trapped in a never ending NOW.
His story disturbed me, but maybe it sparked an interest in me that has now made its way into this song. It made me realize just how important memory is.
As I started working on this song I also started thinking about memory in the afterlife. Will I have a memory of my life in the hereafter? If I don’t, then isn’t that the same afterlife that an atheist or agnostic believes in? You die and simply cease to exist.
Some people believe your consciousness merges with a “universal” consciousness. But what difference does that make if I still cease to exist as an individual? Maybe there’s a collective memory of who I was but doesn’t it seem nihilistic if “I” am no longer “me”?
I have to think there must be an individual. And that, in my limited understanding, is one of the fundamental points of Christianity. That the individual is sacred and loved. So much so, that the ninety-nine are left behind to go search for the one who’s missing.
I don’t fully understand everything I’m talking about, nor claim to. That’s part of the fun of music. You can write about things while not fully grasping what you’re writing about, which sometimes creates more questions than answers.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.
Production Notes
Big thanks to Pedro Fonte for his excellent drumming contribution on this track.
I started this song messing around on the guitar and trying to understand why going from a IV chord to a flat major VI (out of key) chord sounds great, huh? Thankfully a bit of searching on the interwebs helped me understand it’s a parallel key. Ok... I guess?
This was some good insight for me in that I don’t think songwriters are necessarily always focused on the “correct theory” but more of just trying to find the things that sound “good”. After all, isn’t that what theory is for anyway? I don’t think music theory is just a set of rules to follow, but rather an attempt to explain and formalize why things sound good to our ears. We use theory to help us get there faster.