Not a Traditional Love Song
This being Valentine’s week, I’m going to link to one of the most popular songs from “The Last Session,” (a musical with the book by Jim Brochu and the music and lyrics by Steve Schalchlin) called “Going It Alone.” Not a traditional love song.
In fact, when I started writing it, it was meant to be a battle song about the war inside my body as I fought HIV, but then, in that early morning hour. I heard Jim stir in the other room asleep. And I thought, “I know what I’m going through, but what must it feel like for him? To be on the outside looking in, feeling helpless and watching someone you love fade away?”
And that’s when it turned into “Going It Alone.”
There are a number of excellent renditions of this from various casts for which you can search online.
But I’ve chosen the one I recorded for a CD called “The Bonus Round Sessions.” This is partially a album I made in almost a single hour back 25 years ago, sitting at a piano playing and singing live with no pitch adjustments or do-overs.
(I had only enough money to rent the studio for an hour.) It also contains most of the original demos for The Last Session using members of the cast of the first staged reading, including Chip Esten, recently the star of the TV show Nashville.
If you have someone special, do something extra special for them this week. If you don’t, then find someone else who might be alone and could just use a friend. Share the love.
GOING IT ALONE
Music & Lyrics by Steve Schalchlin
Though you’ve been a rock for me to stand on
Beside me every moment of the fight
Even though you make it so much better
When I go to sleep at night
The fight that I am fighting is my own
And it feels as though I’m going it alone
Now and then my friends take me to dinner
And tell me how they’re with me all the way
They lean across the table and they
Say they’re thinking of me
Then they take the bill so
I don’t have to pay
And they tell me they’re so proud of how I’ve grown
And they say they know I’m going it alone
But is it such a lonely battle?
Have I been so wrapped up in myself?
What about what you’ve been through as well?
Do you lie awake and worry
Never falling back to sleep?
Are you going through some private kind of hell?
Do you also feel you’re out there on your own?
Do you feel as though you’re going it alone?
Do you lie awake and worry, never falling back to sleep?
Have I put you through some private kind of hell?
I’d have to read your mind to even tell
Just before I turn to go to sleep
I brush a little hair back from your eye
Suddenly the loneliness I felt just melts away
And I smile because I know the reason why
Can we really say we’re out there on our own
Can we really say we’re out there on our own
When together we’ve been going it alone
When together we’ve been going it alone
©1996 by See No Evil Music/Lil Shack O Tunes (ASCAP)
Listen to all of Steven’s music and buy it here:
Steve Schalchlin
Steve Schalchlin is an American songwriter, actor and musician. He is widely regarded as one of the first HIV/AIDS bloggers, beginning his in 1996 to keep family and friends updated on his failing health. When he responded well to a last-ditch effort in treatment by his doctor, he found out that his little "AIDS blog" had garnered a net following. A respected songwriter, Steve put his rebound into music that his partner, playwright Jim Brochu, turned into the critically acclaimed The Last Session. His latest music is Living in the Bonus Round and can be found on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube.
