Back in the late 90s I had a quite vivid dream about an impossible love that could not exist, and I wrote the first version of the lyrics for this song, and had a vague idea for the chords.

In either late December 2000 or early January 2001, I was visiting my parents during winter break from grad school and noticed that a bunch of my favorite webcomics were all part of what was called the Dumbrella collective. I decided to poke around on the main Dumbrella website, and I noticed a thing on it called “Song Fight!,” which was a songwriting contest where the person running it, Narbotic, would invite his friends to make songs for a single title, as a continuation from his own website where he’d take random title suggestions and make weird little songs for them.

There was also an announcement that the next title, Zero to Phantom, would be open to anyone to submit to the title.

I had absolutely no ideas for it.

But the next title to go up, I LOVE YOU, reminded me of the song I’d written a few years before, and I decided to dust it off. I figured that it’d make a perfect guitar song.

The problem is, I only barely knew a couple of chords, and I didn’t have a guitar. At this point nearly all of my music production had been weird chiptunes.

So I went to a pawn shop and paid too much for some broken and dusty piece of crap, and figured out a few more chords, and I didn’t have a pick so I sanded down a chunk of a broken CD-R to make one, and I tried to record the song.

Unfortunately, I did not know how to actually record live audio, and I didn’t have the finger strength or stamina to even play through the whole song anyway.

So, I sampled all of the chords I knew and a couple of little riffs, loaded them up into Impulse Tracker, and tried sequencing the chords together. Then I recorded my vocals and chopped them up into samples and loaded them up into Impulse Tracker too, and then kinda-sorta assembled things together.

At the time, I didn’t know how to sing, either. I also hadn’t worked out the rhythm of the vocals and just kind of figured it out as I went.

The song was an absolute mess. But I submitted it to Song Fight! anyway, and the reaction was… adequate enough that it inspired me to keep going, and this started my process of slowly building up a bunch of skills for songwriting, guitar playing, recording, singing, and so much more.

This isn’t the first song I ever wrote, but it is ultimately the one that started me on my journey as a musician.

Lyrics: I LOVE YOU

The sun comes right up And there’s nothing I can do But state my mind, recite my point of view

It warms up my hair Passes behind a cloud I’m sitting here, thinking here of you

It shines in my eyes Like a beautiful swirl It blows my mind, and trembles in my view

I cannot think Of anyone in this world I’d rather spend my whole life with than you

I cannot believe Our love could go askew I would rather think What it’s like to be with you

I take a deep breath Let it out real slow The air is warm and smells of sweetened dew

It warms up my head I can see it now I’m sitting here, madly loving you

The world closes in Everything’s a blur I’m feeling dizzy, look around for you

I can’t help but think This must have been a dream Because you are nowhere within my view

I could not believe Our love would go askew I would rather think What it’s like to be with you

I’d like to be with you