The Best Song I (N)Ever Wrote

Like most semi-musically-inclined folks I've written a tune or two. Most of them, and it's not many, live in my head, although I've written down a few lyrics and I can read music enough to figure out a few of the basic notes of the melody if I have an hour or so to kill. With the exception of one or two songs, including the non-mega-hit "She Might Be Your Girlfriend," which was written about an interesting fellow I was in a band with, most of my songs probably are crap. But as Hank as my witness I could write a traditional Country song just as good as anybody, and I shit you not. I write them for fun in my head almost every day. I mean cry-in-your-beer stuff.
 The problem is I only like traditional Country, like Waylon and Willie and the boys, but I don't listen to much of it. I usually like a bit more stimulation in my music. Writing imaginary Country songs is just a hobby. Don't get me wrong...I dig and respect some of it; if nothing else for all the crazy shit they could get away with singing about, as long as they set the lyrics to a happy-ish melody. That incredibly dark and creepy shit they sang about still blows my mind. It makes some Death Metal lyrics sound tame. I certainly don't care for it, but if nothing else its belligerency speaks for itself.
 Anyway I can flat-out write a Country song. Again, I mean the trad stuff. To me, "New" Country songs are just Pop tunes that didn't make it as Pop tunes, so they added a steel guitar and twanged-up the vocals, and voila...a New Country smash hit. I could write that shit in my sleep. Not interested. I write these fucking killer tunes in my head, with lyrics, basic chords, bridge and everything, and even pick geetar solos in my head, but I forget them the next day. One stands out though. It's based on this short dream I had years ago, whereby some miracle I'd made it to Heaven, and there were at least 150 people all playing acoustic guitars. It should've been a complete trainwreck, since in real life, one or two guitarists is usually enough, but everybody played as one. It was a great dream.
 Out of nowhere I found myself in Heaven. I probably thought "Holy S#it...I MADE it!" but I found myself sitting in this huge circle of guitarists sitting under a gazebo-type thing out in the middle of the most beautiful scenery you could imagine. I looked down and I had a beautiful walnut acoustic in my lap, but I knew I'd only had a few Classical lessons and the only song I could play was "House of the Rising Sun," which happens to have exactly three chords, but presumably due to being in Heaven, somehow I knew how to really play. There were 150 acoustic guitar players in Heaven, and we were all playing the Steely Dan classic "Barrytown." I remember chuckling at that even in my dream, but I just went with it. I guess I figured we'd be playing hymns or something. It still cracks me up. Come to think of it...the song did have a biblical reference in the bridge. It goes: "In the beginning we recall that the world was hurled. Barrytown people got to be from another world." Maybe that's why, but probably not. The idea of playing Steely Dan in Heaven; on any instrument, is making me tear up right now, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. For me personally it's a beautiful and appropriate thought. Playing Steely Dan on Earth is just fine too, but if there's an afterlife, that's not a bad deal. I'd have never dreamed that 150 guitar players all playing at once could even stay in the same time zone; much less play as a unit, but they did.
 ANYwho, Some time after that I was going about my business one day and as usual the Country tune of the day popped into my head. I didn't have to do any work...it was as if the song had already been written and I was just listening to it. Just an acoustic came in. It was the simplest guitar thing you could ever play in your life. It was the same chord over and over, except that just the one bass note changed a couple of frets every other time. You'd know it if you heard it. Then a guy (me) came in sort of half-singing/half-talking, and it went: "The first thing that happens when you get to Heaven is...you learn to play the guitar...and you're good." I thought it wasn't a bad opening line and I was eager to work on it, but after the first line it stopped. I couldn't come up with the next line to save my life. I wrote/didn't write that thing probably twenty years ago. It's popped into my head a million times, and I got nothing.
 I'd like to think that it's because it's such a killer opening line that there's just no way to follow it, but that's probably not it. I could write a tune right this minute, and I guarantee someone would at least consider it. I can't finish this tune for anything. "Meow, meow, meow, meow" is about all I can come up with. It's nuts. I can write Country tunes in my head every fucking day but I can't even come up with the next line. I don't get it. Well, sheeit. Ours is not to question why, I reckon. Have a good'un, y'all.