The Story and Its Song

The seed idea for my novel isn’t the only thing with its roots in the 1950s. While at boarding school outside Orlando, I heard a song whose words and melody planted themselves deep in my heart and in my mind. I’m not sure how I got the words so firmly in my head, but through the decades that followed, I remembered two verses. Somewhere deep in the heart of the last century, that song gave birth to my story. In addition, the first line—“Dear Lord, take up the tangled strands”—gave me the title for the story. From the beginning, the title has been Tangled Strands.

I’ve long heard that publishers, on things they agree to publish, often come up with a different title than what the author had, and this happened recently to a writer in our local group. Since the song is the theme of my story as well as its title, I’ve never been sure how anyone could separate them or come up with something else. However, I feel confident in my heart that it I ever get a publisher, I will be so happy about it that I will make every effort not to grouse about changes they want to make, including even the title.

But as I resurrected work on the story in the last three years, the question came up about where I could find the song. How could I learn if it is in the public domain?

To find out how it took four people to help me track it down, stay tuned.