I Don’t Know What Happened by Akira Sky

"I Don't Know What Happened"

What the hell is happening?
I was just in 1969.
The record store is empty.
And it's dark and no one else is in sight.

Wh‐where did all my friends go?
It was a protest, hangout, a chill, groovy night.
All you need is love she told me.
Maybe Nana's waiting right outside? No!

How much time has passed? Where am I?
Back in 2019.
And wait, how? Am I crazy?
Did this album teleport me?

What can I say to the girl I knew in the past?
And how can we talk, when we're fifty years apart again?
I knew her then. I know her now. But a purple haze divides us somehow.
From rocking out at Woodstock to zoning out on Court TV.

Oh man. I really gotta fix this
I said a lot I shouldn't have,
Like, "Oh! You don't need to go to college, Girl!"
But that's where you fell in love with Grandad.

And now I'm back! I'm back! Whoo! No – It's not a good thing.
Candy – Nana! Has to go to college, meet her controversial fling.

So what can I do to fix a love that always should be?
And what can I do to make sure my grandparents meet?
How do I know what I changed when I went to '69 then 2019 again?
Yesterday is literally 50 years too far away.

Now I'm stuck in the now, but my mind's in the past,
And my head is about to explode.
Because no one has yet understood me like her,
Now I'm afraid she'll spend her life alone.

We have to talk it out.
But I can't go back now.
I have to try.
But I don't know how.
What happened? My Nana!
What happened? I don't know.
Don't wanna think about it. Don't wanna think about it.
Cause I'm really freaking out!

Sky’s song, "I Don’t Know What Happened," is sung by a multiracial girl named River who finds herself transported from the rare record room of a thrift store back 50 years to 1969 New York. River meets her grandmother as a younger woman and fears that their conversations may have set events in motion that would permanently alter her life and others. Akira Sky is a 2019 Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge Winner.