In 29 years, I had recorded over 2,200 songs. I was amazed.

Host: The morning sun crept through the studio blinds, cutting long stripes of gold across the worn soundboard. Dust motes floated lazily in the air, shimmering like tiny ghosts of old melodies. Jack sat slouched in a chair, a coffee cup cooling beside a stack of tapes, while Jeeny stood by the window, watching the city below hum to life.

A faint echo of recorded vocals spilled from the speakers — the fragile hum of a woman’s voice, faded with time.

Jeeny: (softly) “Twenty-nine years. Two thousand, two hundred songs. She said she was amazed. Can you imagine, Jack? To have that much of yourself recorded into the world?”

Jack: (gruffly, without looking up) “Amazed, maybe. But also… haunted. That’s not amazement — that’s inventory. A catalog of your own repetition.”

Host: The old tape player clicked and whirred, spitting out another line of Kate Smith’s voice, sweet and tremulous. It filled the room like the ghost of a cathedral, its notes heavy with time.

Jeeny: “You’re wrong. It’s not repetition — it’s devotion. To do something that long, that consistently, you have to believe in the echo of what you’re making.”

Jack: (finally looks up, his grey eyes sharp) “Or you have to be trapped by it. People call it passion when it’s really habit. She probably just kept recording because she didn’t know how to stop.”

Host: The light shifted, crawling across his face, revealing the tired creases around his eyes — the kind carved not by age, but by disappointment.

Jeeny: “You sound like you’re describing yourself.”

Jack: (a dry laugh) “Maybe I am. I’ve seen people grind themselves to dust thinking they’re building something eternal. Artists, engineers, founders… they call it legacy. But most of it fades before they do.”

Jeeny: “But not all of it. Some of it stays. Kate Smith’s voice still echoes, doesn’t it? You’re hearing her now, decades later. You can’t say that’s meaningless.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes glimmered, catching the reflection of the turning reel. The tape hissed like a whispering river, steady, unending.

Jack: “Meaning is subjective. Longevity isn’t proof of worth. You can record a thousand songs and still say nothing new. I think she was amazed because she realized quantity doesn’t guarantee immortality.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe she realized that even the smallest effort — a single song, a single breath — becomes miraculous when you look back from the edge of time.”

Host: The sound of a piano chord lingered, unresolved, floating in the room like the last word of a prayer.

Jack: (leans forward) “Tell me, Jeeny — do you really think legacy matters? That filling the world with songs or stories changes anything? The world forgets faster than it forgives.”

Jeeny: “Legacy isn’t about being remembered. It’s about having lived. She sang because she was alive in those notes. Every recording wasn’t a monument — it was a heartbeat.”

Host: The studio clock ticked faintly. Outside, the city horns began their daily symphony, the hum of buses and people threading into a living soundtrack.

Jack: “Heartbeat or not, that’s a long time to keep chasing the same sound. Don’t you ever wonder if she got tired of her own voice?”

Jeeny: “Of course she did. But that’s part of it — the exhaustion, the renewal. Every time she sang, she wasn’t just repeating herself; she was rediscovering who she was becoming.”

Jack: (snorts) “That’s poetic. But art isn’t therapy, Jeeny. It’s labor. The world demands output, not self-discovery.”

Jeeny: (turns to him, eyes fierce) “Then why are you still here, Jack? Sitting in this empty studio, surrounded by songs you’ll never release? Don’t tell me it’s labor. You’re here because you still believe in the echo too.”

Host: Jack’s hand froze on the mixer, his fingers tightening around a dial until it clicked. The room filled with static — a sharp, aching burst of white noise.

Jack: (quietly) “Maybe I used to. But I stopped believing when I realized the echo doesn’t answer back.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it’s not supposed to. Maybe it’s not about being answered — it’s about continuing the sound.”

Host: Her words hung in the air, shimmering in the half-light, like the dust that danced to the rhythm of the tape reel.

Jack: (after a long pause) “You ever think about what it takes to do something 2,200 times? Not just the effort — the cost. The things you give up. Friends, sleep, years.”

Jeeny: “Yes. But what else are we supposed to spend our years on? Comfort? Safety? If you’re not amazed by what you’ve done when it’s over, then you never really lived.”

Host: The music swelled, the faint chorus of an old recording filling the studio again — “When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain” — Kate Smith’s signature song. Her voice wavered but did not break.

Jack: (listening, softer now) “You know… maybe she wasn’t amazed by the number. Maybe she was amazed she survived it — the fatigue, the doubt, the endless pressure to be more than human.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And yet she kept singing. That’s the point — endurance is grace. To stay faithful to what you love even when it stops loving you back.”

Host: The studio light flickered, casting brief shadows across the walls lined with records. The air seemed to hold its breath.

Jack: “Do you think she was happy?”

Jeeny: “I think she was amazed. Which might be the same thing — at least at the end.”

Jack: “Amazed that she’d spent her life inside the same sound?”

Jeeny: “Amazed that one sound could hold an entire life.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice softened, almost a whisper, as the song ended, the reel slowing, the final note dissolving into the hum of silence.

Jack: (leans back, exhaling slowly) “You know, I think I get it now. Maybe it’s not about the songs. It’s about seeing the sum of your existence and realizing — somehow — it mattered.”

Jeeny: “That’s it. It’s the astonishment of endurance. The shock of having been.”

Host: Outside, the sun rose higher, spilling light over the consoles, turning the dust motes into tiny stars. Jack reached for the play button again.

Jack: “Let’s hear her one more time.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “You see? You still believe in echoes.”

Host: The tape clicked, the reel spun, and once more the room filled with that timeless voice — fragile, human, eternal.

And as they listened, the past and present merged — two souls in a small studio, sharing in the same amazement that Kate Smith once felt:
not at fame, not at numbers, but at the miraculous fact of having lived long enough to leave a sound behind.

For in the end, every song, like every life, is both fleeting and infinite —
a brief echo that somehow refuses to die.