A Song You Almost Never Heard

It was 2001 and I was excited about auditioning for a big feature film coming to Nashville called “Colored Eggs” (it would eventually be called “Changing Hearts”). The director, Martin Guigui, was kind enough to tell me that while I’d be great for the young male lead, the role had already been cast with a Hollywood star. But since I was a musician, maybe I’d like to write a song for the soundtrack? He told me the plot of the film was a beautiful love story that revolved around breast cancer, and that he needed a song to play during the credits, after the heroine passes away.

I went straight home and wrote “Precious Memories,” thinking about missing my grandmother. I put my rough version on a cassette tape and sent it off to the director. I never heard anything back from him, and that song sat on the floor in the corner of my office for seven more years before anyone heard it again.

Out of the blue in 2008, I got an email from a guy I had done some acting with in the past. He was currently making films up in Louisville, Kentucky.

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July 7, 2008
Smeebers - It's Jefferson. Hope you're having a good summer...

INQUIRY
Finishing up on another movie, and desperately need a ballady piano man love song...
…got anything recorded I might not have heard?

j-m
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He sent a preview clip from the film using the popular Billy Joel song as a placeholder. So I did what any other normal, red-blooded male, starving artist would’ve done: I sent him my recording of “Precious Memories.”

His response?

“Perfect. Wow…those lyrics.”

WANNA HEAR IT?


I could not have been more thrilled. I always liked the song a lot and secretly wondered if it’d ever see the light of day. And now this—perhaps the coolest thing ever to happen to me musically. Something so personal, so meaningful, so significant to me was going to be used in a film! A film that actual people would watch! Unbelievable.

The next step was to go into the studio with my producer friend Christopher Davis, and record a full-on professional version of the tune. Chris took my rough demo and made it gorgeous.

I loved the director’s enthusiastic response:

My new bumper sticker:
WHO NEEDS BILLY JOEL...WE HAVE SMEBY

“Clancy” turned out to be a beautiful movie. It’s an extremely emotional story about a 10-year-old runaway girl who befriends a homeless Gulf War vet, helping him find redemption. His gratitude for her is expressed through my song. Can you believe it? We even did a music video that appears on the DVD—another dream come true.

I’ll never forget sitting in the movie’s premiere celebration screening up in Louisville. Surrounded by several hundred actual people, I could feel the time was approaching for my song to begin. I could barely breathe.

It was an extremely emotional portion of the film—I could hear the muffled sounds of people crying a bit throughout the theater. Then it started…the swirly synth sounds my friend created, then the piano…then my voice: When I close my eyes… I had major tinglies all up my spine and all over my head. My brain could not process the reality of the situation. I kept thinking how UNBELIEVABLE THIS IS…then I’d step out of myself and think that to everyone else, this is really just another song in a movie. I wanted to stand up and yell, “That’s me singing!! That’s my song!!! I wrote it about my grandma!!! Isn’t it great!!” But I didn’t. And for that, and the entire story, I’m overwhelmingly grateful.

[caption id="attachment_1611" align="alignleft" width="180"] click here to visit my 20 YEARS IN NASHVILLE landing page[/caption]

The most beautiful part of this whole thing is not that I got a song in a movie. No, the part that chokes me up when I tell this story is the part about the song sitting in the corner of my office for seven years before anyone heard it. I really loved this song, and felt there was some value to it, but I couldn’t see how this song would ever see the light of day. How in the world anyone else would ever have the chance to feel the same way as I did about this tune?

The mysterious, yet glaringly obvious truth I’ve discovered, is that there is no way to know the future. Amazing, right? My insight is profound. You can tweet that if you’d like. If this truth is so obvious, why do I live my life as if it’s such a foreign concept?

What I find is that I hold myself back from something because I’m not sure what’s going to come of it. You know what I mean? If no one is ever going to hear the song I want to write, what’s the point of writing it? If no one is ever going to read the book, what’s the point of all the typing?

It takes great courage to live a life of faith. You are putting your hope and trust into the unknown, into something unseen. You are putting words on a page, trusting that the story that’s being written has significance, even if you can’t see it at the time.

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