Our Time Deserves a Love Song by Marnie Mitchell-Lister

An aging musician relives his first love when someone asks what inspired him to write a particular love song.

Fact: The worlds oldest song, an Ancient Egyptian melody in 1400BC, was a love song; a tribute from a man to his wife.

And judging by the current charts, the magic of love has and continues to perennially create thousands of spellbinding sounds for our ears to enjoy, many based on personal experiences of the artist.

Our Time Deserves A Love Song delves into the backstory of “Love Song”, an unreleased track by acoustic legend Adam Stern. Asked by a superfan on a chat-show TV interview about the origins of the tune, we’re whisked back over 3 decades to his teenage years in Cape Cod.

At first, there’s not even a note of love in the sea air. His parents are divorced, and his middle-aged Dad’s driving him to his former other half. Also in the car is Father’s new girl, a beauty half his age. Of course, Adam’s parents end up relishing the chance to insult each other when they arrive.

But adults aren’t the only ones insulting one another – Adam’s non-conforming music taste and fashion sense sees him ostracized by the local cool kids.

Yet it’s at this point when the first verse begins:

            GIRL (O.S.)
Don’t sweat them retahds.

Sure, it ain’t the most romantic sentence, but this girl, Mary, turns out to be perfectly in tune with Adam.

As they bond through their love of music and having family problems, it’s clear these two go together like guitar and drum, complimenting one another perfectly.

Sadly, as with all good songs, this one ends suddenly and far too soon. So Adam does the only thing he can do: compose a tribute to this brief romance that’s so beautiful the audience cannot help but applaud loudly when he performs it.

And if you show this film at festivals, real life audiences will have a similar reaction!

In fact, this is one script that’s already proven it’s appeal: As an August 2009 One Week Challenge selected script. And it’s been successfully table read as well. You can listen to that here:
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Budget: Moderate. Though, get a good tune for this one!

About the writer: An award winning writer and photographer, Marnie Mitchell-Lister’s website is available at BrainFluffs.com/. Marnie’s had multiple shorts produced and placed Semi-final with her features in BlueCat.

Read Our Time Deserves A Love Song (12 pages in pdf format)

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This screenplay may not be used or reproduced for any purpose including educational purposes without the expressed written permission of the author.

About the reviewer: Hamish Porter is a writer who, if he was granted one wish, would ask for the skill of being able to write dialogue like Tarantino. Or maybe the ability to teleport. Nah, that’s nothing compared to the former. A lover of philosophy, he’s working on several shorts and a sporting comedy that can only be described as “quintessentially British”. If you want to contact him, he can be emailed: hamishdonaldp (a) gmail. If you’d like to contact him and be subjected to incoherent ramblings, follow him on Twitter @HamishP95.