How to Dedicate a Song Without Telling Anyone It Is Yours

Every few weeks someone writes in with a request that makes me sit up straighter in my chair. They want to send a song into the night, and they want the right person to know it's theirs, and they want absolutely everyone else to suspect nothing. It's the most elegant kind of flirting there is. A signal flare disguised as a lullaby.

So let me teach you, the way I'd teach a friend over a second glass. First, choose a song that only the two of you could possibly connect. Not the obvious chart-topper everyone's cousin has already used. Pick the one that played in the background of that one afternoon, the one that was half-drowned by a kettle or a stranger's laughter. Obscure is intimate. Obscure is a secret handshake.

So let me teach you, the way I'd teach a friend over a second glass.

Second, write the dedication like a postcard from a very polite stranger. Mention the weather. Mention a streetlamp, a bench, a time of day. Leave out the name, the district, the date, and anything that sounds too much like confession. Let one detail sit in there like a single red thread, a small pink umbrella, a shared tangerine, something only your person will snag on and feel their stomach turn over.

Third, and this is the hard part, do not wait by the radio. I know you will. We all do. You'll sit with your tea going cold and your phone face-down, pretending you're only half listening. But the point of an anonymous dedication is that it doesn't demand a reply. It leaves a light on in a window and walks away whistling.

My verdict, from one conspirator to another: send it, then go live your evening. If the right person is listening, they'll feel the red thread pulling. If they're not, the song is still a beautiful thing to have set loose into the dark. And if you'd like a hand drafting the postcard, there are voices ready to help on TheFriend, discreet as ever.