Went to the dentist today then napped away the afternoon… which means I’m wide awake now. So I started thinking about a comment that one of my readers had left a while ago, and wondering, “Could I do anything with that?”
So what you’ll read below is a first shot at making a song out of CG_Hill’s memorable comment from a few months back. Some time this week I’ll put music to it, then I’ll record it, then it will go platinum, then Mr. Hill can sue me for his fair share. Without further ado, “It Hardly Matters Now”:
Before Clinton was president
The campus silenced by the snow
We sat freezing in the arena
Because it was free for us to go
It was late then when we walked
Across the quads back to her dorm
I remember secret things we talked
about and I held her close and warm
(Chorus)
And if I wanted to return there
I don’t think I would know how
If I ever felt that way about anyone
Well, it hardly matters now.
In the noise of the casino
Where she matched me drink for drink
And when I said “I love you”
She smiled but she didn’t blink
“Our day will come,*” she once told me
But we both know it was a lie
She kissed me free and boldly
But there was anger in her eyes
And if I wanted to return there
I don’t think I would know how
If I ever felt that way about anyone
Well, it hardly matters now.
She snuck out just when the sun rose
We thought it best to be discreet
Just a pixie casting shadows
There was blood soaked in the sheets
She was as far as invention
And I was as far as memory**
Her heart beat screaming scarlet
And mine was dark as ebony.
And if I wanted to return there
I don’t think I would know how
If I ever felt that way about anyone
Well, it hardly matters now.
There’s some roughness in the meter which might have to be fixed — or might not. We’ll see. It’s also possible this won’t make for a very good song at all. But why not try?
* Almost certainly a reference to this song, although the obstacle in this case was not age or society but rather a husband of whom the lady in question is now semi-cheerfully free. Any link I could post to her poignant and brilliant blog, which contained an absolute heartbreaker of a post regarding the day her divorce was final, would now 404 as she’s taken the whole thing down.
** stolen from Yellow Stars And Ice, a poem much beloved of, and oft quoted by, the gamine in question.
There is a little for many of us in that ode.
Mine was when I was a newly minted, excruciatingly bashful teen.
Late on the last evening at a weekend church sleep over at a classic American farm, with a classic farm house with a beautiful rose and flower filled yard, I was kissed while sitting on a swing under a rose bush covered arbor by a dark haired beauty. Shocked and greatly pleased, I had an exciting, restless sleep.
The next day she smiled at me took my hand for a moment and ran to her parents car. The next day at school, I learned that she and her family had moved far away. I never saw her again.
Thoughts of her persisted for years and I still have the need to smell Roses, and when I do, I think of her and that long ago kiss on a swing on a fragrant starry night.
Get some sleep, Jack.