On the 16 th of January 1971 Bill Clement was in the hospital and awake at 4.40am when his son Marc was born. 8 years and several months later he was asleep in bed at roughly the same time when woken by the same child.
Marc couldn't sleep for the tune in his head. It had been on TV earlier that day, now it was wedged in his brain - playing on repeat: Born Free by Matt Munro. He didn’t know why it was in there, why that tune or why then. All he knew was of a foreign and urgent need: he had to learn! This is what compelled him to rouse his sleeping father in the dead of night.
Initially irked at such an interruption, Unrelenting Melody Syndrome was not unknown to Bill, himself a musician of many years. He muddled out of bed to Marc's bontempi organ and the task at hand. It was nearly six am when Bill put his boy, fingers exhausted and thoroughly satisfied, to bed. He went back to his own bed, tired, proud and humming Born Free. The sun was coming up.