A Productive Week
I wrote “Because You Love Me” and “Mesmerized Again,” another song from the Love Songs and Suicide soundtrack, within the span of about 5 days. It was perhaps my most prolific burst of songwriting ever. I worked on them both simultaneously and didn’t find extensive editing to be necessary with either song.
The Inspirations
1. Lady Gaga gets a partial credit for the inspiration.
Ooo, La, La, it’s Ga Ga!
I remember really digging her song “Million Reasons.” To me, it was a song more about death than love, but I do have an affinity for all things macabre so my interpretation could be misguided.
2. My Grandma
At 81-years-old, she was still in remarkable shape in the above pic and had just ascended a gauntlet of outdoor staircases, starting from the Stadium, to see the UW campus. She’s the reason I applied for college in the first place, and undoubtedly the only reason I attended my graduation…
Yeah, pretty random inspirations!
My grandma, of all people, whose presence is felt throughout many of my songs in one way or another (more on that later, perhaps), also played a pivotal role in this song’s creation.
I’ll talk about grandma first, then Gaga…
2012 Stroke
My grandma had a massive stroke in 2012 which eventually landed her in a nursing home. In the immediate aftermath, my dad and I drove 1,000+ miles to see her, knowing there was a chance she’d perish while we were en route.
When we arrived, she was fighting for her life in a hospital, having just had a stent put in her brain via emergency surgery which some members of my family opposed for various reasons.
We entered the room. With an array of tubes and monitoring equipment beeping near her beside, my cousins and aunts surrounded her.
“Here comes Bobby,” they told her; Bobby was my early-childhood name that only a few people on this planet are still allowed to call me. God I hate it….
Before I caught a glimpse of her, she said, “Let me see him.”
I reluctantly waded through crowd, not knowing what to expect. Then, with her voice weakened and slightly slurred from the medications and anesthesia, she said, “He needs a…”
She’d always looked vibrant and young relative to her age, but at that moment, for the first time, she looked emaciated and like the elderly woman she was. She repeated, “Oh, needs a…”
Then finally, she blurted it out, “He needs a haircut.”
And everyone laughed. What an icebreaker!
I had longish hair through most of my 20s — never as long as this! My grandma hated it. To appease her, I would typically get it cut, or at least trimmed, prior to my visits.
The next thing she told me, which I’ll never forget because it’s one of the nicer and more poignant statements anyone’s ever made to me was, “You’re so special and you don’t even know it.”
She repeated while starting to tear up, “You don’t even know it.”
I don’t believe it’s true, but then again, I’m something of an existentialist and I don’t really believe anyone’s special. Dust in the wind, my friends, dust in the wind.
Perhaps I need a more uplifting worldview. That is one of only a handful of memes I’ve ever posted on facebook, for the benefit of my 39 friends, and counting! It received one, very lonely like…
I digress.
My grandma’s one of the few people who believed in me in this life. She died a few months before I completed this song, and I thought I’d include the line, “You don’t know just how special you are” as an acknowledgment to her. It’s not a momentous line or moment necessarily, but as I said, her presence is felt throughout the song. I’m sorry she never got to see me succeed, or be particularly happy, or give her the great grandchild she’d always wanted.
Aroused By Gaga (But Not in that Way)
Prior to writing “Because You Love Me,” I’d just listened to Gaga’s song, “Million Reasons,” a tune that features perhaps the most commonly used chord progression of the last 100 years, the 1-6-4-5 progression (in the key of G, that’s G-em-C-D). It’s been used a million times. And even if you know nothing about music, chances are you know what a G chord is, right? Good.
This 1-6-4-5 sequence is sometimes regarded as the “doo wop” chord progression, due to its ubiquity in the 50s. Some of the most popular songs of the last century use this progression, including “I Will Always Love You,” “Every Breath You Take,” “Stand by Me,” and my favorite song of all-time, “Unchained Melody,” to name a few.
So yeah, I’d never written a song that employs that chord cycle, and I just decided after hearing “Million Reasons” that I needed to take that progression for a spin. Perhaps genius would strike and I’d write an undeniable, million-dollar hit song!
No such thing happened, but the end result was respectable nevertheless.
Not Enough Great Duets
I’ve always wanted to write a quality duet — that was my other motivation at the start.
Let’s face it: There simply aren’t enough great songs for love-drunk and just-plain-drunk couples to butcher on karaoke nights! Sure, there’s “Shallow,” another Gaga song, and “I Got You, Babe,” and “Endless Love,” and all those cheesy Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers numbers. But what the fuck else is there? Not much!
I came up with the line “I’ve always been hard on myself” and the rest of the song followed pretty quickly. I was in a receptive mood and didn’t feel like too much editing was necessary once the initial “flow” was complete. I could be wrong in my assessment. It’s my least favorite of all I paid 3 grand to have produced professionally, by a considerable margin. But it’s mine, and I stand by the words and music.
And that’s the story behind, “Because You Love Me.” The song is below.
R. Ross Horton is a writer, editor, and musician based in Palm Coast, FL. Last year he published his first book, Love Songs and Suicide: A Travel Memoir, Romance, and Tragic Musical Comedy. At Lovesong.blog, Ross strives to help people find harmony in a chaotic world. Visit this website’s about page to learn more.