Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
But for the first time in years, never doesn’t feel quite as certain as it used to.
darian
. . .
Bishop Hart’sstudio sits in a converted warehouse in downtown Nashville, all exposed brick and Edison bulbs that cost more than most people’s rent. I’ve been here enough times to know which floorboards creak and where the good coffee lives. Today, though, I’m carrying something different than my usual half-formed ideas and bourbon-soaked melodies.
The track plays through Bishop’s speakers, filling the control room with Rye’s melody layered over my production. I watch his face while he listens, reading the micro-expressions I’ve learned to decode over years of pitching songs. His fingers tap against the mixing board, not in time with the music but ahead of it, already hearing possibilities.
“Play it again,” he says when it ends.
I hit replay and lean back in the leather chair that probably cost more than three months of rent. The second listen is always more telling than the first. First listen, producers hear what is. Second listen, they hear what could be.
Bishop’s nodding now, really nodding, not the polite kind he gives to songs he’ll forget before I leave the parking lot.
“Who wrote this with you?” He spins his chair to face me, eyes sharp behind designer glasses.
“It’s complicated.”
“Complicated how? Because this melody . . .” He gestures at the speakers like the music is still hanging in the air. “This isn’t your usual style. There’s something vulnerable here. Female perspective, if I had to guess.”
I think about Rye at The Songbird’s piano, humming fragments that night when the venue was closed. The way she pulled melodies from nowhere like she was remembering something that already existed.
“Her name’s Rye. She’s not signed anywhere.”
Bishop’s eyebrows shoot up. “Is she looking for representation? Because with melodies like this?—”
“That’s not how she works.”
The words come out sharper than intended. Bishop holds up his hands in mock surrender, but he’s smiling.
“Protective. I get it.” He swivels back to the board, pulling up the track’s waveform on his computer. “Look, I’ll be straight with you. This could be something. Real something, not Nashville something. But it needs her voice on it, not just her melody.”
“I know.”
“You talk to her about recording it properly? My studio time, my engineers, standard co-write split?”
I shake my head. “She doesn’t even know I finished the production.”
Bishop whistles low. “You’re playing with fire, brother. Taking someone’s melody without?—”
“I’m not taking anything. I’m trying to give her something.” The defense comes quick, maybe too quick. “She writes these pieces, these fragments, but never finishes them. Never lets them become what they could be.”
“And you think you know what they could be?”
“I think I hear it, yeah.”
Bishop studies me for a long moment. The guy’s got a reputation for spotting talent early, for being the producer artists seek out when they’re ready to level up.
“You’re not talking about just the song, are you?”
I don’t answer. Don’t need to.
He sighs and saves the file to his system. “Alright. Here’s what I can do. I’ll hold studio time next week, Thursday and Friday. Prime slots. If you can get her here, we’ll cut this properly. Full production, session musicians if needed, the works.”
