My cousin Zack has autism. He’s a few years older than me and is a great person. No ******** kind of guy, will tell you how he feels about something straight up. He’s a hard worker and very dedicated. I’ve known him since I was a kid and have found myself thinking about things he has said when they randomly pop into my head based on the context of whatever I’m doing at that moment. It’s profound.
He reached out to me via email a few years ago, because I’m a musician, and asked if I would be willing to put a voice to some songs he had written. I told him I would be honored.
And so, we created this song. The lyrics are 100% Zack, I didn’t change a word, I just created a melody for them and sang them to the rhythm track that his music teacher made for the song. The lead guitar is all me as well. It was the best type of recording session… once I had the vocals down, the guitar part pretty much wrote itself. The whole thing took me about 3 hours because I was so focused on making it sound they way I thought he wanted it to.
This is a completely real, honest, and heartfelt attempt at explaining what it’s like to have autism, and the story thereof. Zack told me he wanted to be able to describe to people what it’s like to be autistic through a medium that is universal, and thought I could help convey the emotion through my understanding of music. He gave me a couple general directions as to how the song should sound, and when I sent him the finished track, he said it was perfect. I remember being so proud of myself, both as a family member and as a musician, for meeting his expectations.
Up until now, only a few people have heard it – and one of these people was a co-worker of mine that has two young boys, both with autism. I played it for her on one of her breaks, and she cried softly when the song was finished. She told me how much it meant to her that I let her listen to Zack’s words through my voice. That it somehow made some of the things her sons do, and the frustrating moments they share as a family, make more sense.
And it was at that moment that I felt like Zack and I had done something great. We actually positively contributed to the universe in a way that made me feel surreptitiously human. But I didn’t want the message, the true core of the song, to be lost. To be honest, I didn’t quite know how to effectively explain its true meaning to the world through social media. So I told myself that someday I would know how and what to say, and archived it in my music library of songs I have recorded and produced.
If you’ve read this far, you deserve to listen to the song. And when you do, I want you to think about the fact that the person that wrote the lyrics is genuinely trying to explain something to you that is literally unexplainable. I personally think he does a damn good job at it too.
If you or anyone you know is affected by autism, please feel free to share this song with them.
I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed helping to create it.
The song can be found here:
https://soundcloud.com/kirbympls/lost-but-not-found
Sincerely,
Russell