The Song is You (2009)

by Arthur Phillips

  Five hours later, the blue-and-white light of the computer monitor. He wears striped pajama bottoms, the hair on his chest gray in some rising percentage, and on the shelf above the computer sits the older copy of the collected Yeats, which Rachel bought him years earlier. He glances to his left, toward the dim doorway where only Rachel’s legs are visible in the bed, the sheets slightly blue from the computer reflecting off the family photo. His impatient index finger taps the lazy mouse long after the page should have loaded, and finally it assembles itself, one off-center square at a time, and he clicks on New Songs, the hurried pop of the headphones into the computer’s schematic jack, a few seconds of only the sound of his tongue and breath, then:

  How much of our history

  And how much of your mystery

  Should I figure now was just for laughs?

  I can’t say it wasn’t fun,

  Won’t say you were just anyone.

  But I suppose the moment’s past.

  And what’s a moment anyhow?

  My foolish fan, my miscarried plan,

  My definitively married man.

  “Are you coming to bed, baby?”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Beginning with its title (Kern-Hammerstein), this book incorporates in its text several song names, some slightly altered, by: Adair-Dennis, Ahlert-Young, Joan Armatrading, Chet Baker, Barry-David, Bix Beiderbecke, the Beloved, the Blow Monkeys, David Bowie, Bretton-Edwards-Meyer, Burke-Van Heusen, Eric Clapton, George M. Cohan, Leonard Cohen, John Coltrane, Concrete Blonde, Vladimir Cosma, Elvis Costello, Noel Coward, the Cranberries, Miles Davis, Blossom Dearie, DePaul-Raye, Kenny Dorham, the Dream Warriors, Electronic, Duke Ellington, EMF, the English Beat, Victor Feldman, Femi Kuti, Fine Young Cannibals, Michael Franks, Dave Frishberg, Stan Getz, Gordon-Warren, Jerry Gray, Gruber-Mohr, Haircut 100, Herbie Hancock, Heyman-Green, the Housemartins, Joe Jackson, the Jam, Leos Janacek, Jane’s Addiction, Sharon Jones, Keane, Chris Keup, Kraftwerk, Rohan Kriwaczek, Leiber-Stoller, Curtis Mayfield, Mercer-Herman-Burns, Mercer-Kosma, Mercer-Schertzinger, George Michael, Ingrid Michaelson, Mo’ Horizons, Jack Montrose, Van Morrison, Brad Neely, Oliver Nelson, New Order, Orbison-Dee, Charlie Parker, the Pet Shop Boys, Chan Poling, Pomus-Shuman, Cole Porter, Prince, Robledo-Terriss, Rodgers-Hart, Roxy Music, Sade, Carlos Santana, Erik Satie, Scrapomatic, Wayne Shorter, Sigler-Wayne-Hoffman, Carly Simon, Paul Simon, the Smithereens, the Smiths, Regina Spektor, Steely Dan, Sting, the Style Council, Styne-Comden-Green, Styne-Merrill, the Suburbs, the Sundays, Swing Out Sister, the The, They Might Be Giants, Tanita Tikaram, Tuxedo-moon, U2, Suzanne Vega, the Violent Femmes, Antonio Vivaldi, Wang Chung, and Wilder-Palitz-Engvick.

  Also, “Space Oddity (Major Tom)” is by David Bowie.

  WITH GRATITUDE TO:

  Julia Bucknall, Gabriel Byrne, Gina Centrello, Andrew Corsello, David Daley, Tony Denninger, Chris Eigeman, Jodi Ghorchian, Roger Grenier, Jennifer Hershey, Raj Jutagir, Alice Kaplan, Paol Keineg, Anna Lvovsky, Peter Magyar, Jynne Martin, Mike Mattison, Peter McGuire, Daniel Menaker, Courtney Moran, Beth Pearson, ASP, DSP, ELP (for four gifts), FHP, FMP, MMP (by the skin of his teeth), OMP, Paulina Porizkova, Mihai Radulescu, Marly Rusoff, Nick and Maryanne Shore, Jake Slichter, Toby Tompkins, Peter Turnley, Nancy Viglione, Donna Wick, Tony Wolberg, Daniel Zelman, and, of course, Jan.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ARTHUR PHILLIPS was born in Minneapolis and educated at Harvard. He has been a child actor, a jazz musician, a speechwriter, a dismally failed entrepreneur, and a five-time Jeopardy! champion. His first novel, Prague, a national bestseller, was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times and received the Los Angeles Times/Art Seidenbaum Award for best first novel. His subsequent novels, The Egyptologist and Angelica, were both bestsellers and have been translated into twenty-five languages. He lives in New York with his wife and two sons.

  The Song Is You is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright (c) 2009 by Arthur Phillips

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Phillips, Arthur.

  The song is you: a novel / Arthur Phillips.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-1-58836-793-8

  1. Middle-aged men—Fiction. 2. Women singers—Fiction.

  3. Inspiration—Fiction. 4. Psychological fiction. I. Title.

  PS3616.H45S66 2009

  813’.6—dc22 2008028845

  www.atrandom.com

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