Little Martha

That’s the first time you hear it, when it’s played on a guitar by your friend. You’ve never heard the recorded version, although you’ll find no difference between the two when you get around to listening to the original much later. It feels like a late afternoon number, it makes you think of a high-ceilinged house, probably because that’s where you heard it first. Perhaps there was a pool in the courtyard, its silent blueness disturbed only on weekends. The song is short, sweet and memorable, like the life of some geniuses, a little more or less, you think, would have spoiled it.