At some point, i don’t remember how, the words “Melancholy Polly” came to mind. I immediately decided to craft a song around them. My idea was to create a narration of someone to whom bad things happened, but he could cheer himself up by visiting a woman who was even more miserable than he.
Three verses, a chorus, and a bridge (something i had not written for any songs to date) came very quickly. However, when i tried to create a melody for it all, i hit a block. The melody that i came up with for the three parts sounded banal and pretty much indistinguishable. I put the lyrics aside and asked David Wiseman if he was interested in collaborating on it by devising a melody. That didn’t pan out.
Anyway, after writing a verse about the Democratic Committee to Re-elect the President for “Hey There”, i revisited “Melancholy Polly” and devised an acceptable melody for it. I also added an additional verse, and the bridge evolved into an ending 3 lines.
The evolution of the ending was especially interesting. I tweaked it several times before coming up with the current result — one that has a twist in it that caused me (and hopefully my listeners) to revise our image (and perhaps gender) of Melancholy Polly.