Wendy Wax can't carry a tune but wrote a song anyway

Wendy Wax, author of The House on Mermaid Point, brought the music of her hero to life with the help of Ian and Evan Koteles of the band 10th Concession. Wendy shares how … (Stick around to the end of the post to see a video of the awesome song!)

Wendy: I am not musical. I do not have a voice or, I've been told, an ear. Even my shower wishes I wouldn't sing.

I did take singing lessons briefly as a child and received an award for "most improved" because, as my teacher explained at the recital, someone who begins completely tone deaf can only improve. When my mother got the baby grand piano she'd left a space for in our living room for so many years, I took piano lessons only to discover that my fingers were no more nimble than my vocal chords. After years of anguish, I learned to play a decent Chopsticks and was especially good at the part played with a closed fist. In high school I learned enough chords on a guitar to be dangerous and performed in a talent show and at a few family functions with a talented friend who had a voice that won her the lead in the senior-class musical. My part included a lot of smiling while singing as quietly as possible so as not to distract from her performance.

This doesn't mean I don't enjoy music. There are current songs that have me nodding my head, drumming my fingers, and tapping my feet and more than a few old favorites whose opening bars produce memories that make me smile, laugh and even cry. But I never forget that no one wants to hear me sing.

I tell you all this so that you will understand how surprised I am that I co-wrote a song inspired by my new novel, The House on Mermaid Point, and then had the pleasure of seeing it recorded.

It all started while I was brainstorming what kind of situation to send my Ten Beach Road characters into for their new renovation-turned-reality TV series, Do Over. I decided that this time they'd have to deal with a homeowner who didn't want them there. Someone with a lot of baggage and even more reasons not to cooperate. The result was William Hightower, aka William the Wild, an aging, down-on-his-luck Southern rock legend who is vehemently opposed to having his private island in the Florida Keys turned into a bed-and-breakfast over which he'll be expected to preside.

We first meet Will coming out of rehab for what has to be the last time. As I wrote, I referred frequently to his hit song, Mermaid in You. I knew how important the song was to this character. He'd even named his island after it. I was pretty sure it was autobiographical, the story of how Will had messed up his life and lost a woman he'd loved.

I kept coming back to the role this song played in Will's life. Finally, I realized I wanted to write it. Actually, I think I needed to write it. Though I had completed the story of The House on Mermaid Point, it turned out that creatively I wasn't quite finished with Will. Once I gave him — and me — the song of his lost love, he would be complete.

I decided I should do it. After all, I write for a living — how hard could it be? I fantasized that the song, once it magically existed, might even be performed in a YouTube video. An even larger fantasy that the Rock Bottom Remainders might one day consider performing it evaporated when I realized they'd disbanded several years ago.

The book was finished, revised, and copy edited before I wrote William Hightower's ballad. Mermaid in You was a hefty/meaty thing fraught with meaning, a lyric littered with ties to the sea and even to fly fishing, which were things that mattered to Will.

There was a minor hiccup when I remembered that I not only can't carry a tune, I don't know the first thing about writing music. I quickly got in touch with two of my cousins who had been in bands when we were growing up. One of them had cut a record with his group. The other had gone to California to pursue his love of music. They agreed to look at what I'd written. It wasn't long before one of them pointed out that what I'd sent weren't actually lyrics and thoughtfully provided a Google link on songwriting. The other let me down a little more gently, but finally admitted that he didn't have the time to help.

I thought I was going to have to finally let go of the idea when a new friend told me that two of her sons were musicians and that they might be willing to look at my lyrics. They did. Not being related to me, Ian and Evan Koteles of 10th Concession didn't send me any Google links or songwriting advice. In fact, one day I heard from my friend that Ian was in town and wanted to play me a rough of Mermaid in You.

I met him at a Starbucks, where he handed me his version of the lyrics, sent the song to my phone, placed headphones on my head and told me to hit play. I sat and listened, my eyes on the new lyrics and the old, while he, his fiancée and my friend watched.

As I listened to William Hightower's song for the first time, I could hardly grasp what was happening. It was difficult to believe that what I had barely been able to imagine was now real. The lyrics were different, but still mine. Ian and Evan had kept pretty much all my words, but pared them down and rearranged them as they worked on the song. And the music Ian and Evan created was perfect. I could imagine not just Will performing it, but his fans applauding it and him.

I suspect my outward reaction wasn't as effusive as Ian deserved. Because I hadn't had any clear expectation, I had no clear reaction. I couldn't quite get past the fact that the song existed at all. I listened to Mermaid in You almost a dozen times in the car on the way home. And each time I heard new detail and fell in love with it a little more.

I'm thrilled that Ian and Evan brought Mermaid in You into the world. It's been a sweet and exhilarating collaboration. A toe dipped into waters I never thought I'd swim. Sometimes it's the unexpected and unlikely things we do that mean the most. I have to admit that I am really excited to have co-writing credit. It's something this tone-deaf non-musical writer never imagined.

For the next several months Mermaid in You is available as a free download on my website www.authorwendywax.com and 10thconcession.com.

Watch 10th Concession perform the song:

(If you can't see the video here, you can watch it on Vimeo.)