glen campbell - "still within the sound of my voice" (from the reunited with jimmy webb lp, available for purchase here.)

oh, i feel positively stendhalian today!

just as he published extracts from his friends visconti and salviati in de l'amour, i've now been asked to do the same here, perhaps b/c he knows i can relate.

a friend of mine, shannon m—, is having girl problems, or a girl problem, singular : his problem is that his girl, ashley v— b—, just won't talk to him. they parted amicably for reasons he doesn't want to get into; they tried to just be friends, but it wasn't working; she wanted to call off all communications. well, he wasn't doing so well w/ that, but when she asked him to please stop contacting her, he had no choice but to obey. (oh, i guess he had a choice, but he's a decent individual.)

here's the rub, though! we have here a v. 21st century problem. you see, she keeps showing up in his website's statistics after announcing that she wouldn't. he wonders what her intent is, but of course he's handcuffed. he's unsure of what to do, and he's loath to take it up on his own site and i can't say i blame him.

thus, a little indirection. knowing that ashley is a rather regular visitor to this here site, he requested that i upload glen campbell's "still within the sound of my voice," a canny selection. i mentioned earlier how webb used his position as star songwriter to address women that he loved; this one is no different, except no names are used. in "sound of my voice," he adds another layer : he codifies the indirection. the singer is only able to contact the woman that he still loves through his song getting played on the radio; lucky for campbell, then, that his was a top five country hit.

so this is the chain of communication, for those confused :

jimmy webb-->glen campbell-->the radio / video / cd-->shannon-->me-->the internet-->ashley.

i feel like casey kasem doing a long-distance dedication. cut, paste, et voila, shannon writes :

Ashley, if you're reading this, I know this might be a cheat. I know you said stop contacting you. And technically, I have. What I wonder, though, is why you continue to visit my site? It seems unfair that you should have access to my thoughts when I'm left totally clueless. But I don't want you to stop visiting because I feel as if it means something, that something might still be there, if only friendship. Though I might be totally off, because again I have no access to your thoughts. It's been awhile now, hasn't it? Can we talk? Or at least try? I can't take the first step because I'm bound by my promise; there is no shame in you contacting me--or giving me leave to contact you. If you're still within the sound of my voice, or the range of the internet, would you please contact me? You know where I can be found.

ashley, this one is for you ...