Adam had been in love with music since he was a tiny tot. His parents told him he could sing before he could talk. From the age of 17, he hummed and strung his way through a series of Open Mics and street busking and small one-off gigs and improvised performances at parties. You name it, he could have a bash at singing it from old soul to rock ballads to folk classics.

Adam’s problem was that to make his mark on the musical world and have a crack at fulfilling some kind of destiny, he needed to write his own material. He’d slaved for twelve years over the blank screen of his PC and badly scribbled notepads to create something of worth. Waiting for the Muse failed to work when the Muse appeared to be engaged elsewhere. Adam wanted a playlist of songs to call his own, a piece of artistry that reflected who and why he was, the beginnings of an independent musician with the dream of a recording contract. But this task remained frustratingly elusive.

He was visiting his sister who lived in a small market town in Berkshire. Adam was wandering the town square, lost in thought, and on the verge of acknowledging that he’d be performing predictable covers till the end of his days. And then he heard it. A captivating melody drifting on the breeze and a woman’s voice, clear, plaintive, strong.

He followed his ears to the busker. She was around 19 with a plugged-in acoustic and the name ‘Alice’ painted on it. She was a skinny rather plain-looking girl in t-shirt and jeans, with a pierced lip, a few tattoos and unkempt hair. Adam nodded at her and stayed to listen. He’d never heard any of this material before. Her songs were not the usual fayre from young female troubadours. She sang not of romantic yearnings and callous bastards and greening the planet. This particular young lady sang of her place in the world, of lone and distant travels, of connections forged, of overcoming hurdles to face the world with confidence and hope. She sang of overturning the order of things but did it with wit not angst. There was a positivity about her themes which somehow belied her appearance. The lyrics were poetry and mantra and a bold mission statement for life. They were reflections of Dylan and Waters and Armatrading and Guthrie and Stevie Wonder. Adam thought they were some of the best lyrics he’d ever heard. And he’d heard quite a lot in his time.

She finished her song and briefly looked him up and down.

“Hi,” said Adam, dropping a couple of pound coins into her guitar case. “Those songs. They your own?”

“Yeah. Been writing for a while now.”

“Cool. You got a nice turn o’ phrase.”

She tipped some of the coins from the case into her coat pocket. “They’re just songs.”

“Maybe you should get your material out there. In the big wide world. A recording contract or something.”

Alice shrugged. “I don’t think so. I’m not much of a money-junkie or mixing it with suits and twats. It’s a rip-off business. I’m happy doing my thing and just making a few quid.”

Adam stared at her for a moment.

She asked him “D’you write anything yourself?”

“Sure” he replied quickly. “Loads. I perform at clubs down where I live.”

“What d’you write about?”

He avoided her eyes. “Oh, y’know, all sorts o’ stuff.”

She looked at him for a long moment then nodded to her guitar. “I need to get on.”

“Y’mind if I hang about and listen?”

“Whatever” she replied and proceeded to sing about a drifter with an innate wisdom who touched the souls he encountered with his songs.

………………….

Adam walked – or virtually danced – away from Alice feeling like he was carrying a pocketful of gold. And he was. He pulled out his phone, clicked on ‘Audio’ and there was her confident voice with strumming guitar, loud and clear. A brief flicker of conscience was momentarily ignited but he quickly snuffed it out. If people had a God-given talent and wouldn’t sell it for all it’s worth, then someone else deserved to take it. Job done.

The first thing Adam did when he returned home was to print out the lyrics, edit them slightly so they were more suitable to his style, then change all the titles. Then he sang and recorded the songs on his amp, downloaded them to a memory stick and sent the contents to Copyright House in London.

Adam knew a fellow musician, Peter, a keyboard player, who did session work with an up-and-coming band. He played the new recordings to him. Pete was both impressed and bemused.

“I thought you had problems composing stuff, man. Where’d this come from?”

“Remember that story about the Blues guy, Robert Johnson? He went away for a year and came back all talented and good to go. Well, that kinda happened to me.”

Pete raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, but rumour was, Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil.”

……………………..

Peter gave him the heads-up to a record label and, after hearing some of his own  work from a studio session, they snapped up Adam for a debut album. If moderately successful, he would be contracted for further albums and an exhausting number of gigs and appearances. He was a good looking fellow, carried about him a certain roguish charm and the material was clearly outstanding. In terms of lyrics and melodies, Adam already had a couple of albums worth of great songs on permanent loan; he hadn’t really worked things out after that but was always open to new opportunities.

Things went swimmingly. The title track from his album, ‘Rising Sun’ was a huge success and received millions of downloads in the UK alone. He was acclaimed by some of the media as the 21st century Bob Dylan. The gigs grew larger and his fan base swelled. He felt on top of the world.

Then the letter arrived.

It was from a law firm. It claimed that the lyrics to the songs which made up his entire repertoire had been stolen from their client, Alice Stewart. It stated that the songs had been legally copyrighted eighteen months before Adam’s recording contract, and he was now liable to prosecution for professional plagiarism. He was to renounce his claim to the material and award Alice a substantial sum as compensation. If he wished, he could settle this out of court. Which he very grudgingly did.

………………..

The record label was informed of Adam’s cheating and, not wanting a financially prohibitive scandal, quietly terminated his contract. One of the great mysteries of the time was “Why did Adam Shayfer quit the music business?” Because he had nothing left. No money, no contract, no reputation and no lyrical talent to call his own.

He escaped to stay with his sister in nondescript Berkshire and, while walking the town square, was astonished to see Alice Stewart, just as before, playing her guitar and singing her heart out. She finished her song, ‘Storm and Shield’ then smiled warmly at her Number One fan.

“Hey, Adam, how’s it going?”

“Why?!” he spluttered. “Why are you still here doing…this when you could’ve had it all?”

“Silly man. This is all I want. Plus a nice little sum in the bank for a few rainy days. Thanks for that.”

Adam glowered at her. “You knew. You bloody knew”

Alice started to pack up her stuff “Some people have this, this hunger in their eyes. They can’t help themselves. It’s like offering them a nice juicy steak and they can’t stop salivating.”

“You took me. For everything I had.”

“Well, you started with nothing and ended with…well, y’know.” Alice smiled again. “Bye, Adam.”

She left him standing there while walking away, guitar case in hand and singing a new song to herself….

”And the vultures came, took more than their fill,

so they fell from the sky like rain.

It’s a story as old as time itself,

and the song remains the same,

yeah, the song remains the same.”