What is it about the chase? What is it about going on a quest that makes the journey as (if not more) enjoyable and rewarding than the prize that hides at the end? Why are we as humans so addicted to such endeavors?
Does it improve our lives? Not always… in fact in many cases, we’re made worse. Often a quest for knowledge or destiny causes us to lose someone or find out something we’d be better off not knowing. This is part of the reason I haven’t always enjoyed stories I’ve read… the characters don’t wind up better off than they were before they started their journey.

As writers, we often are confronted with such stories and we have to weigh out how much our characters can (or should endure). In one of my stories, my loving wife read over a few of my chapters and strongly cautioned me on putting my characters through too much. There is only so much the human mind can take… well she was right, so I reigned in a lot of the things that my lead was going through.

Another theme we have to touch on when deciding how a quest will go is the main characters level of obsession. How far are they willing to go to win? How much time are they willing to donate to it?

Why do I bring this up? Well… because I have to admit to an obsession that was also kind of a hobby for a very long time.

18 years have gone by…

Almost two decades since I heard that incredible song on the radio, but I’ve never been able to identify it. I would whistle it to friends and they would shrug, saying that it sounded familiar, but they didn’t know it. Keep in mind, this was before YouTube and shazam. This was when recreational use of the internet was still in its infancy.

I would give up searching for a while… and then would hear it on the speaker at Wal-Mart or another store. I could never make out any of the lyrics to look it up… all I had, was the tune. Then I hit a breakthrough. The song was featured in a commercial for an upcoming movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMMx37Co61Y
Ever After… PERFECT!! I had somewhere to start looking. So at that point, I went onto Angelfire and started searching for the soundtrack…

Well… it wasn’t on the soundtrack. Movies in the mid-late 90s loved featuring music in movie advertisements that had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the damn movie!!!

Years went by and I had forgotten the song until I heard it again at a store that was kind of like Spencer’s Gifts… don’t remember the name of the place, but it reignited my desire to find it. By now, youtube still wasn’t around, but google was. I started my search again… unfortunately, by now, I had forgotten which movie it was in. So while I could whistle the tune, all I had was a vague description:
New Age music…
Mid-late 90s…
Featured in a Medieval movie…
Sounded like something Enya would do…
Still, no one knew it. No one could find it. Once again, I’d hit a dead end. On days when I was alone, bored, and had nothing better to do, I’d resume the search, in hopes of stumbling across something, but I never got anywhere with it. I admit to being greatly frustrated.

More years went by… YouTube was now around and thus a new tool to help me in my search. One by one, I resumed my search through soundtracks and new age greatest hits from the time period. Nothing…
Well today, as I lay here completely snowed in, suffering from writers block as my family sleeps, I decided to try one last time. I posted my description on Facebook. One friend suggested using Shazam. So I tried it and hummed the tune… nothing… it didn’t work! The app couldn’t recognize it. I was so mad, I almost tossed my phone across the room.

I continued my search until I rediscovered the above commercial. My heart froze in my chest. THAT’S THE SONG!!! I had it and I wasn’t about to let it get away. I searched the comments to see if anyone had identified it, remembering now that it wasn’t on the soundtrack.

Nothing… no… not again! I was so close, I was not going to give up now! I posted the commercial on my page, but got nowhere. I was afraid that I’d hit another dead-end… then I remembered Shazam! OF COURSE!!! Play the commercial for the app and let it figure out the name of the song! That should work… if it can decipher the song from the talking in the commercial.
Given my history with this mystical song… I didn’t have high hopes. A song came up with an odd-looking background… ‘The Mummer’s Dance’ by Loreena Mckennitt. Ironically, I’d looked through some of her music in my search, but never came across this one. No way… could I have come so close so many times, but just not found it? There was no way. Plus a title like that? There’s no way this song charted. Not expecting anything, I plugged the name into YouTube.

The first video to come up wasn’t anything official… just something someone had put together. Again, not expecting much. I clicked on it… New Age… violins… instrumentals… drums… It could be… no way… It can’t be…

Then the vocals came on. At first it was nothing more than a hum. When Loreena began to sing… my eyes watered and goose bumps traveled down my spine. THIS was my song! I couldn’t believe it! It took almost two decades, but the song had been identified and located!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc7Ke9Org9U

I quickly (and legally) downloaded it and saved it to my playlist, where it will remain forever on my playlist for when I need inspiration for my writing, or need to be able to relax. It will never escape me again.

Thus ends a quest that has gone on too long. On this night… I found the song that I had been searching for.