It’s Saturday but I won’t be able to do a post tomorrow.
I knew exactly the song I wanted but when I wrote today’s date, I burst into tears.
38 years ago today we lost John Lennon. I was stopped on the I 90 bridge in rush hour traffic.
I was searching for music, but every station was playing “Imagine”. Oh God, I knew immediately what that meant.
Back then, I also burst into tears .
You know how, in traffic, you can catch people movement in the car next to you? I turned to see a young man, way younger than me, also sobbing. We locked eyes for a long, long time, just crying. We had both just heard, and we knew it.
What an incredibly powerful and intimate moment. I’ll never forget his eyes.
And this version is from one of my favorite movies…ever. I am an all-the-way-out-of-the-closet Mush Head!! But if you like a good “teacher” movie, this is a must.
Now I’m going to go hug my beautiful, beautiful boys….
I don’t know what Henley’s meaning for this song is but I know what it meant to me.
This song is dedicated to the hundreds of brand new Dad’s, whose baby daughters and sons entered this world in my presence. How lucky was I to have attended and witnessed so many births over the years? The most profound miracles of my life!
As for this video, I am so impressed with Don Henley live. Though the quality of this video is not great, what a polished performance.
Don Henley – Taking Your Home (Live)
Album: Inside Job (2000)
I had a good life
Before you came
I had my friends and my freedom
I had my name
Still there was sorrow and emptiness
Till you made me glad
Oh and this love
I found strength
Never knew i had
And this love
Is like nothing i have ever known
Take my hand
I’m taking you home
Taking you home
There were days, lonely days
When the world
Wouldn’t throw me a crumb
But I kept on believin’
That this day would come
And this love
Is like nothing like I have ever known baby
Take my hand
I’m taking you home
I’m taking you home
Where we can be with the ones who really care
Home
Where we can grow old together
Keep you in my heart forever
Oh and this love
Is like nothing I have ever known
Take my hand
Taking you home
Taking you home
Yes I am
mysteriously little info available, apparently a bit of controversy, hope I don’t get in any trouble for this post. 😒
I’ve posted this song before and probably will again as it is still one of my favorites.
Years ago, I used it as the centerpiece for a mixed CD I made for a group of my very best friends…when we had all become estranged over an unfortunate, and apparently irreparable conflict.
I thought I was being so creative and took a big chance reaching out as I really believed the music might help us heal someday.
I don’t know if they ever even listened to it…but I rarely give up. After all, it’s only been 15 years….
My Thanksgiving (I put my favorite line in RED)
by Henley, Lynch, Winding
A lot of things have happened
Since the last time we spoke
Some of them are funny
Some of ’em ain’t no joke
And I trust you will forgive me
If I lay it on the line
I always thought you were a friend of mine
Sometimes I think about you
I wonder how you’re doing now
And what you’re going through
The last time I saw you
We were playing with fire
We were loaded with passion
And a burning desire
For every breath, for every day of living
And this is my Thanksgiving
Now the trouble with you and me, my friend
Is the trouble with this nation
Too many blessings, too little appreciation
And I know that kind of notion, well, it just ain’t cool
So send me back to Sunday school
Because I’m tired of waiting for reason to arrive
It’s too long we’ve been living
These un-examined lives
I’ve got great expectations
I’ve got family and friends
I’ve got satisfying work
I’ve got a back that bends
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my Thanksgiving
Have you noticed that an angry man
Can only get so far
Until he reconciles the way he thinks things ought to be
With the way things are
Here in this fragmented world, I still believe
In learning how to give love, and how to receive it
And I would not be among those who abuse this privilege Sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge
And I don’t mind saying that I still love it all
I wallowed in the springtime
Now I’m welcoming the fall
For every moment of joy
Every hour of fear
For every winding road that brought me here
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my Thanksgiving
For everyone who helped me start
And for everything that broke my heart
For every breath, for every day of living
This is my Thanksgiving
This song is from the album “Inside Job”.
PS If you by any chance want the playlist from that mixed CD, let me know in “comments”. It is a great one for grieving when relationships of all kinds change.
I know I can’t be the first person to post this when I could not think of a good song for the week’s theme….can I???
Kind of a fun version of the song, though a lousy video.
You Can Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac
Lyrics
Loving you
Isn’t the right thing to do
How can I ever change things
That I feel
If I could
Maybe I’d give you my world
How can I
When you won’t take it from me
You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way
Tell me why
Everything turned around
Packing up
Shacking up is all you want to do
If I could
Baby I’d give you my world
Open up
Everything’s waiting for you
You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
You can call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
A friend of mine she cries at night
And she calls me on the phone
Sees babies everywhere she goes
And she wants one of her own
She’s waited long enough she says
And still she can’t decide
Pretty soon she’ll have to choose and it tears her up inside
She’s scared, scared she’ll run out of time
I see my folks, they’re getting old
And I watch their bodies change
I know they see the same in me
And it makes us both feel strange
No matter how you tell yourself
It’s what we all go through
Those eyes are pretty hard to take
When they’re staring’ back at you
Scared to run out of time
When did the choices get so hard?
With so much more at stake
Life gets mighty precious
When there’s less of it to waste
Scared to run out of time
Just when I thought I’d had enough
And all my tears were shed
No promise left unbroken
There were no painful words unsaid
You came along and showed me
How to leave it all behind
You opened up my heart again
And then much to my surprise
Oh boy, I accidentally did a whopper piece of personal therapy this morning, searching for a song about Search.
I immediately thought of all my life long searches!
First, my youth, I searched for my biological father who left before I was born. I know, in this day and age, it should be easy right? Well, his name was Michael John Kelly. (Might as well have been John Smith!) I started at 13 years old, looking up that name in local libraries. They used to carry phone books from all over the United States, so, using my babysitting money, I would write post cards to as many addresses as I could afford postage for.
Then, in my twenties, I started searching for my daughter, who I had to give up for someone else to raise.
I’ve written about her several times. One example:
In thinking about a song for today’s theme, I realized even though I had the best (step) Dad in the world, and have found, and dearly love, my relationship with my daughter, I am still searching. Sometimes quietly, in the back ground, but sometimes, frantically, like my life depends on finding…what?? I don’t really know. (Well, I do, but that’s another post…)
At 70 years old, there are so many other things I still and always searched for that are unlikely now. That’s not me giving up. That’s the healthiest part of me, gently and lovingly, coercing me back into the present moment.
I guess that pushy voice, my “Guardian”, has always been there, Sometimes it’s audible and sometimes it is blocked by unfinished grief…but it’s constant and reliable when I am willing and able to listen, to hear.
And most importantly, to accept that it is there for ME, not just my clients, my friends, my family, not all the other lost souls I share that voice with when I forget to listen for myself.
You go Alanis! Thanks for always sharing your “therapy” with us in your music!!
You, you who smiled when you’re in pain
You who soldiered through the profane
They were distracted and shut down
So why, why would you talk to me at all
Such words were dishonorable and in vain
Their promise as solid as a fog
And where was your watchman then
I’ll be your keeper for life as your guardian
I’ll be your warrior of care, your first warden
I’ll be your angel on call, I’ll be on demand
The greatest honor of all as your guardian
You, you in the chaos feigning sane
You who has pushed beyond what’s humane
Them as the ghostly tumbleweed
And where was your watchman then
I’ll be your keeper for life as your guardian
I’ll be your warrior of care, your first warden
I’ll be your angel on call, I’ll be on demand
The greatest honor of all as your guardian
Now no more smiling mid crest fall
No more managing unmanageables
No more holding still in the hailstorm
Now enter your watch woman
I’ll be your keeper for life as your guardian
I’ll be your warrior of care, your first warden
I’ll be your angel on call, I’ll be on demand
The greatest honor of all as your guardian
Songwriters: Guy Sigsworth / Alanis Nadine Morissette
Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn’t show your spirit quite as true
You were turning ’round to see who was behind you
And I took your childish laughter by surprise
And at the moment that my camera happened to find you
There was just a trace of sorrow in your eyes
Now the things that I remember seem so distant and so small
Though it hasn’t really been that long a time
What I was seeing wasn’t what was happening at all
Although for a while, our path did seem to climb
When you see through love’s illusions, there lies the danger
And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool
So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger
While the loneliness seems to spring from your life
Like a fountain from a pool
Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You’ve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You’ve had to hide sometimes, but now you’re all right
And it’s good to see your smiling face tonight
Now for you and me it may not be that hard to reach our dreams
But that magic feeling never seems to last
And while the future’s there for anyone to change, still you know it seems
It would be easier sometimes to change the past
I’m just one or two years and a couple of changes behind you
In my lessons at love’s pain and heartache school
Where if you feel too free and you need something to remind you
There’s this loneliness springing up from your life
Like a fountain from a pool
Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You’ve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You’ve had to hide sometimes but now you’re all right
And it’s good to see your smiling face tonight
Fountain of sorrow, fountain of light
You’ve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight
You’ve had to struggle, you’ve had to fight
To keep understanding and compassion in sight
You could be laughing at me, you’ve got the right
But you go on smiling so clear and so bright
Song reminds me of my Dad but his car was, in fact, a 1960 pale yellow, Buick convertible. Man he loved that car. When he could get enough time off work, he would pile my sisters and me in the car, and take us on what he called our Road Trips (never more than a few hours away).
My favorite was in the dead of winter when he would drive until we found snow…hard to do in San Diego.
He’d bundle us up in blankets, lower the top, crank up the heater full blast and drive the freezing mountain roads….
Watched it coming up Winslow
Down South Park Boulevard
Yeah it was looking good from tail to hood
Great big fins and painted steel
Man it looked just like the Batmobile
With my old man behind the wheel
Well you could hardly even see him
In all of that chrome
The man with the plan and the pocket comb
But every night it carried him home
And I could hear him sayin’…
Don’t gimme no Buick
Son you must take my word
If there’s a God in heaven
He’s got a Silver Thunderbird
You can keep your Eldorados
And the foreign car’s absurd
Me I want to go down
In a Silver Thunderbird
He got up every morning
While i was still asleep
But I remember the sound of him shuffling around
Then right before the crack of dawn
I heard him turn the motor on
But when I got up they were gone
Down the road in the rain and snow
The man and his machine would go
Oh the secrets that old car would know
Sometimes I hear him sayin’…
