Check out youtube.com and plug in the above song title. It's nothing big, just an old folk song from Ireland, but a few lines in the song have been calling me lately. You can listen to Joan Baez or Van Morrison or Loudon Wainright III or Paddy Reilly perform it, they are all good. What is it that makes a song dig deep into our heart, into our spirit and latch on like a lizard to our psyche and not let go? I heard this song for the first time 20 years ago, listened to it often then. And after that, zip, it was gone. Two weeks ago, the lines came back to me in a sudden flash: ... these childhood places bring sad reflections of happy days spent so long ago. My girlhood friends and my own relations have all passed on like the melting snow. But I'll spend my days in endless roving, soft is the grass and my bed is free.
It goes on, of course, and if you listen to it you might like it, you might not. But again, some songs stick in the gut of our psyche and they have the ability to haunt us relentlessly. "Carrickfergus" is one for me. Another is "Hallelujah" written by Leonard Cohen, which stuns me every time. But then most of his songs take the listener to another level. He makes popular lyrics seem like a dinner at Denny's. Maybe there's a god above but all I've ever learned from love is how to shoot somebody who out-drew you. Tell me that doesn't burn.
My lovely daughter and I drove to Sacra-tomato today to take Gramma out to lunch. We had a good time, it's so much easier with a third person and since Gramma loves Jenn so much, it makes the day so much nicer. We made Mom laugh a lot, she had a nice little lunch and she got to go home with a cookie and Jenn and I had four hours in the car to chat. We used that time wisely.
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