The Punk Composer (prog/punk fanfiction)

A Punk Composer

"A punk composer".

She didn't know what that definition could truly mean yet, or what that implied exactly.
All she felt was that she just had to swipe the ashes of a sorrowful past away and follow her own path, no matter what the others'd have to say about it.
She needed to break the chains and finally grow her own wings towards freedom - musical freedom: her own realisation.
Just like every band she'd been in contact with had: spread their wings and begun to fly high. 
ELP, the Clash, Buzzcocks: all had faced, or were still facing, a journey amidst what seemed to be the brightest sky, which yet hid clouds of problems, responsabilities, distress and aversities; she'd had the possibility to witness those "other" sides of fame, especially by staying around Buzzcocks, which now seemed to've lost any initial sparkle of constistency about the punk spirit they'd started their journey with.
Devoured by money, drugs and pride, they'd dared fly too high, so high to be blinded by sunrays of an alleged colossal fame which they aimed to achieve in complete arrogance.
But was that how every flight would end up?
She thought about the Clash: four humble, yet fierce men who'd never had the pretense to reach for the sun. Perhaps, they were the only not to realise what a high altitude they'd reached in their musical journey. Or maybe, they had, but their humble nature didn't have them mind about that. So long as they could still see what happened on earth, they were fine: but to four people like them, losing that contact with the common world, those who had their feet on the ground, would be fatal. They relied on that contact to make their music, to just go on as a band, to find a purpose to play.
And so she was not intended to end up like the Buzzcocks: she wanted to keep her eyes open, never lose focus on the real world, the same one she'd thought to be part of until then... but that she was starting to truly perceive only now.
A world made of people carrying any kind of struggles: she'd last seen that when Joe invited her over his house and opened up about his past, showing his most vulnerable side.
Ever since that meeting, Eleanor started to trace the lines of that "real world" all over again. And this time, she indeed wanted to be part of it, remaining herself in spite of the environment she'd decided to enter. 
The CBS was an even bigger industry than the United Artists, which the Buzzcocks belonged to, but she promised herself that music would be her only concern: at the end of the day, she'd had proof that music itself was the one and only thing able to heal her wounds. No drugs or lovers could. Just music... and what music requires simply is: authenticity.

The same quality that her friends Clash surely had. 

The meeting with Henry was one more thing that'd contributed to her renewed hopes and motivation: a friend from the past, ready to support her in her new journey, even professionally, for he'd just become her manager. Indeed, as of then, she needed one of her own. 
In spite of the collaboration, it was unavoidable for her and the Clash to be on two separated levels: the male band played other music, therefore the audience would be different too. 
She didn't know what kind of audience she'd conquer yet, though music would make its way, and so would people who'd eventually come to be interested in her songs... or symphonies. She didn't know how far she would go, how much of her skill she'd put into practice; however, what counted was that she'd just be herself in everything she'd do from then on.
She'd lately matured the need to push herself to her limits, no matter what could come out from her creativity.
In fact, she'd eventually dusted her old prog records, listening to them religiously, as if it was some ritual. ELP, King Crimson, Atomic Rooster, Colosseum, Yes, Genesis had become her daily soundtrack once again, after years and years, despite prog was reckoned to be dead.
Just like the punk movement was dead too, at that point.
So many things were changing around her... just like she'd changed aswell, shaped by the continuous ups and downs life'd put in front of and throughout her growth. 
Punk may'd shaped her as a person, but her soul had always been truly nourished by that heavenly music which once used to play loud anywhere and that though now could only be listened on some private record player. People seemed to've had forgotten about all those accomplished musicians.
But she surely hadn't, and so the "mourning" given by the alleged death of that genre had never stopped distressing her. She needed to keep that legacy alive. Somehow. 
Just like she'd done by re-adapting the song Knife Edge by ELP for a younger audience, manteining the same complex structure whilst changing the sonorities for a more average ear.
But once again: music'd make its way around that dilemma. She would just let the flow carry her.
A flow which could only be nourished by positive vibrations, and now that most of the toxicity she used to have around was gone, she felt finally ready to take some new music out of the blank scores.
Along with her own musical identity, she was starting to gain self confidence again. It was no easy thing after the way her heart'd been mistreated by two people she presumed to love deeply, and moreover, after the legal quarrel and the break up of the band that'd helped her to be launched on the market for the first time... But somehow, music was, once again, pushing her through those waters.