Music For The Lyrics

I wrote for and researched for six months, coming up with what I considered the first act of "Lovelace The Musical." It didn't take me long to realize that in order to create a musical, you actually need music- and I had no idea how to write music.

Luckily I was pretty well connected through my weekly Legendary Bingo event that featured guest celebrities most of the time. Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go's had been one of our "Celebrity Guest Ballcallers" on a few occasions and we had become friends. When I had visited Jane at her house a few months earlier I noticed that she seemed to like porn or at least porn-type figurines- which she had all over the place. I mentioned the idea of the project to Jane and she immediately loved it. 

Before any of the work could be done, Jane surprised me with the announcement that she was moving to Costa Rica to open a restaurant with her brother. I was disappointed- I really liked the idea of a musical co-written by one of The Go-Go's. Remember I used to be a publicist- that's the way my brain works (and it never stops...). So I was thrilled when Jane suggested that Charlotte Caffey, another member of The Go-Go's who also wrote most of their hits, may be interested in joining the project.

We all met for the first time at Jane's house. Jane had warned me that Charlotte was a bit of a prude and this turned out to be true but I discovered that she was a prude with a wicked sense of humor. Charlotte brought Anna Waronker, her writing partner and partner in her record label with her. Coincidentally Charlotte and Anna were sisters-in-law, married to Steve and Jeff McDonald of the group "Red Kross" and Anna's father is the legendary Lenny Waronker of A & M Records. I was in the midst of a rock & roll dynasty!

Charlotte and Anna agreed to write the music for three songs in the developing show- "Hide My Soul," "My Cock" and "Strange Life," a song I had written to be the final number in the show in which Linda reflects back on her life and muses about her uncertain future.

I will never forget meeting with Charlotte Anna a month or so later at the 101 Cafe in Hollywood (one of the original overpriced "we're-so-cool" diners that are now very popular in that town). They handed me a disk and I slipped it in to my Walkman (no I-Pod then) and began to listen. What I heard was nothing less than miraculous. Their music had added that needed 3rd dimension to the words. I have never been so proud to be a writer. Now we had three songs and a very, very long way to go.