This is one of those moments where you set out to do one simple thing but end up complicating it beyond all possible belief.

It’s December 1, 2019 as I write this, and I’ve spent all of November doing the 30-day song challenge. It’s where you share music based on a prompt for each day (Day One: A song with a color in the title [Prince’s “Little Red Corvette”], Day Two: A song with a number in the title [Aretha Franklin’s “One Step Ahead”]).

Doing this challenge got me further in touch with my music outside of listening to it simply to keep my occupied as I commute to work or run to the store. It got me thinking about what certain songs meant to me, why they meant that way, and how they, in turn, help define me. That, plus the reactions of gotten from the songs I’ve chosen, pushed me to create a playlist for one of my published works, L’Amour en Noir: A Screenplay Collection.

That playlist was entirely jazz, and I was in the mood for some soul. I set out to make one that leaned heavily into the soul music of the 60s, and the second I included Aretha Franklin’s “Don’t Play That Song”, I realized that a story was brewing.

The more I listened to the playlist, moved a song here, took a song out from there, the more I could film the story in my head. And once I reach that stage, there’s not choice but to write the doggone thing.

It’s a simple story— put together rather quickly for the sake of exercise. But as first drafts go, I gotta say, I’m pretty proud of it.

Two Lovers Walk Into a Diner, and its accompanying playlist below for your listening pleasure.

Enjoy.