The History of Sound

My father said it was a gift from God.

How I could see music.

How I could name the note my mother coughed every morning.

What the dog across the field was barking,

the key of the springtime frogs.

Shape,

color.

I thought everyone could see sound.

Yellow for D.

Tastes too.

My father would play a B minor, and my mouth went bitter.

It never occurred to me that music was only sound.

The town's music teacher noticed my singing.

She wrote her friend in Boston, a professor...

which is how I left the farm.

A scholarship to the New England Conservatory.

Lionel?

I'm sorry,

I know that song from home. Excuse me.

Where'd you learn that?

Some forest in England.

My father used to sing it back in Kentucky.

Did he?

David White.

Lionel Worthing.

- What department? - Voice.

Well, fa-la-la.

Composition.

- People here know songs like that? - They don't.

This is...

a hobby in the summers.

Collecting tunes, ballads, songs.

Reminds me of home.

What else do you know?

More than you, likely.

Pretty Saro ?

Of course.

Fair Winter ?

"One went east, the other went west."

How about...

Silver Dagger ?

No, I don't think so.

Oh.

- Should I? - Well, it's such a pretty song.

Well, come on. Let's hear it.

What key?

Come on, what key?

I don't usually sing like this, with...

- With what? - With everyone talking.

Oh.

Excuse me!

Quiet, please!

I'm sorry. I didn't mean that.

Now you have to sing.

You shy?

Okay.

Sit here.

Sing me all the songs you know.

David had a thousand songs in his head.

A photographic memory, you might call it today.

He could play a song note-for-note after hearing it once.

Another drink?

I'm tired.

Bed. Walk me home.

Come in. Have some water.

Sorry. I only have one clean glass.

Come here.

Come on.

- Never mind. It's too long. - Keep singing, please.

- I'll teach you the rest later. - What's it about?

A man,

sitting on a gravestone, not letting his dead lover rest.

She gets annoyed by all his weeping, tells him to just

leave her alone, let her be dead.

She tells him to enjoy life while he has it, to go away.

It's a good lesson.

Where'd you learn it?

My uncle and I learned it on one of our song-collecting in England.

And why were you there again?

You're asking a lot of questions so early in the morning.

I told you everything about myself. I don't even know where you grew up.

You don't?

Newport.

After my parents died,

I lived with my uncle Silas outside London for a few years.

I was eleven. Twelve maybe.

You were an orphan?

That's a dramatic way to put it.

I was momentarily unparented.

Silas was surprised by his newfound fatherhood.

He was determined to make me happy,

duty and all.

The English love duty.

He noticed I was spending all day singing the songs his maid taught me.

She must have said something to him about my asking her for songs.

I was an obsessive boy,

severely annoying, I'm sure.

I would go around the village asking people to sing me songs

and I'd write them in a book.

Embarrassing.

It all grew from there.

Silas taking me on trips through the countryside, first around Surrey,

during the summers to the Lake District. Ireland one summer.

He started to be more interested in song-collecting it than I was.

And where's he now?

Dead. Yes.

Fever of some kind. Which is why I'm back here.

Inheritance of my parents' Newport house,

a dislike of English weather, etc., etc.

I'm sorry.

For what?

Your uncle

and your parents.

You don't have any other family?

Everyone you know is going to die, you know that.

I have to go.

I'm busy tonight.

Next week?

- Keep it down! - Sorry.

- Good night! - Shh!

When the draft came later that year, classes were disbanded.

Maybe that was it, I thought.

A handful of nights in one season.

You're going.

That's what I've been told.

Suppose you never have to worry about the draft,

thanks to these.

I leave this week

to war.

Write.

Send chocolate.

Don't die.

And so I went back to the farm

spring of 1917,

suddenly,

regretfully.

Get up!

What's wrong?

What?

You're unhappy.

No, I'm not.

You been like this since you come back.

You didn't wanna come back.

I understand.

You shouldn't have gone.

If you hadn't gone,

you wouldn't have cared coming back.

You're sick.

Just sing something.