About Retail: A dream fulfilled

Decades after seeing his late father in a dream inspired him to write a song, Sam Rosenbaum’s “Why did you leave me now?” played over the credits of a well-known television show in a case of what the Toronto jeweler calls “divine intervention.”

Brecken Branstrator brecken.branstrator@nationaljeweler.com

Sam Rosenbaum’s song, “Why did you leave me now?” played as the closing credits rolled on an episode of HBO’s "True Blood" last August.Toronto--Last fall, one Toronto jeweler saw his musical work from more than a decade ago, a song written in tribute to his late father, finally get some recognition.

In 1996, years after his father had died, Sam Rosenbaum, now vice president of sales and marketing at Fortunes Fine Jewellers, said that his father came to him in a dream. They were sitting on a bench in a garden, and even though they weren’t speaking, Rosenbaum said he felt something amazing.

“I woke up at 1:30 in the morning, went to the basement, and wrote the song,” he said, adding that he finished it in about an hour.

Though Rosenbaum was not a professional musician at the time, he was managing one singer, Liz Rodriques, whom he partnered with to record the song. Though they put the song on iTunes, nothing happened for a long time, and Rosenbaum left it behind to move full-time into the jewelry industry.

Two years ago, Rosenbaum began thinking about the CD again, and decided to upload the song to iTunes. It made about $35 the first year, and since it cost $50 to renew the song on iTunes again, he almost decided to let it expire.

But luckily, something told him to give it another try, and that’s when “divine intervention,” according to Rosenbaum, brought the song in front of the team at a major television show.

Last summer, Rodrigues tried to get back in touch with him after the team at HBO’s popular vampire drama True Blood was trying to get rights for the song. Rosenbaum said that he didn’t believe it was true at first, until he looked up the name of the musical director of True Blood, Gary Calamar, and discovered that with a few Grammy nominations, he was indeed the real thing.

“It was surreal because I’ve had some disappointment with it in the past, and it’s a tribute to my father, so it was nice to hear it play after all these years. It’s taught a lot of people to never give up on that dream and to stay the course,” Rosenbaum said.

Usually, every True Blood episode is titled by the song that plays during the end credits. Though that wasn’t the

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case for this episode, Calamar found the song when he was searching in iTunes and thought it would be a good fit.

The song, which Rosenbaum owns 100 percent of the rights to, appeared at the end of the ninth episode of Season 6, called “Life Matters,” which aired in August.

Many people have posted the song as well as their own covers on YouTube since the episode aired, and Rosenbaum said he sold a decent number of songs in the couple of weeks following “Life Matters.” He’s said he’s still hoping that someone famous will record a version of it.

Rosenbaum said that he’s also gotten back into writing music.

The small celebrity that the song brought him after news got out that it was on True Blood didn’t hurt the jewelry business either.

“It definitely made people more aware of our store. We’ve had some people come in just to say congratulations,” he said.

Brecken Branstratoris the senior editor, gemstones at National Jeweler, covering sourcing, pricing and other developments in the colored stone sector.