The Dedalus Log

Day after day I must face a world of strangers
Where I don’t belong, I’m not that strong.
It’s nice to know that there’s someone I can turn to
Who will always care, you’re always there.

When there’s no getting over that rainbow
When my small lusty dreams won’t come true
I can take all the madness the world has to give
But I won’t last a day without you.
(I Won’t Last A Day Without You: Paul Williams - 1972

A few months ago I heard a song that stopped me cold. The lyrics shot right to my brain and glowed, as if highlighted with a fluorescent marker. Don Williams’ soft baritone painted an image that slowly materialized into a picture of my wife Kathleen and our life together. By the time Years From Now was over, I was lost in a hazy mist of memory and emotion, remembering how much in love I am with her, and how much I need her in my life – especially after almost 40 years together.

Until that moment, I could name only five songs that I’d call my love songs of Kathy. These are tunes that instantly created scenes, images, thoughts, and memories of her. Strangely, I can’t think of one that I’d call “our song”, or “our songs” during the years we dated and courted in the early 1970’s. Oh, don’t get me wrong; music was always the background score to our times together. I remember the rock and roll, and folk rock sounds of the 60’s and early 70’s ringing in my ears when I think of Kathy: the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Gordon Lightfoot, James Taylor, and Carole King. Music was my excuse for getting romantic, holding her hand, wrapping my arms around her, and kissing her. But I hadn’t found the lyrics of any particular song to provoke thoughts of Kathy until after we were married in 1975. The first song to really create such an image of Kathy, and my feelings for her, was Mary Travers’ rendition of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.

We were in the Van Nuys Tower record store on Ventura Boulevard when Kathy’s brother Greg called me over to the Used Records department. “You gotta’ buy this one,” he said, handing me a used album with the picture of Mary Travers on the cover. “It’s her first solo album,” he explained. I was already a great fan of the Peter, Paul, and Mary trio, and agreed with Greg’s assessment that Travers was their best singer. I think I paid two dollars for the record, and couldn’t wait to hear it when we got home. It wasn’t until I flipped the record over and played the B-side that I heard the tune I associate with Kathy even today. I could have dictated every word, because they described exactly how I felt when I first saw Kathy’s face, kissed her mouth, and laid by her side.

The first time ever I saw your face
I thought the sun rose in your eyes
And the moon and stars were the gift you gave
To the dark and the empty skies, my love,
To the dark and the empty skies.

The first time ever I kissed your mouth
And felt the earth move in my hand
Like the trembling heart of a captive bird
That was there at my command, my love,
That was there at my command.

The first time ever I lay with you
And felt your heartbeat close to mine
I thought our joy would fill the earth
And would last till the end of time my love,
And would last till the end of time.
(The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face: Ewan MacColl – 1957)

A few years later, I heard the second love song on the car radio as I drove home from work. Paul Williams’ The Lady is Waiting was the sign-off theme of a radio program I listened to on my long drive home from West Hollywood, during our third year of marriage. We had just moved from our honeymoon apartment in Santa Monica to our first home in the San Fernando Valley, a few months before the birth of Toñito. I sang the lyrics to that song (as best I could) every workday for one year as I wound along the curving road of Coldwater Canyon and inched through the straight lanes of the 101 Freeway. I stopped only when I got a new job teaching at Van Nuys High School, which was only 10 minutes away from our home, and ceased listening to the program. The song went like this:

Brighter than sunshine reflected on water,
The smile of the lady is gracious and warm.
Though she’s a woman
She laughs like a child at play.
And the lady is waiting
At the end of my day.

Waits at the doorstep and says that she loves me
And wants me to tell her that I love her too
If I have troubles I know she will wish them away.
And the lady is waiting
At the end of my day.

Waiting to comfort me if I am weary
Eases my mind
Waiting to comfort me,
Ready to cheer me,
Ever so gentle and kind, and kind.

Sharing my secrets and wishing my wishes
A whisper of summer is there in her smile.
Softly reflecting our love in the things that we say
And the lady is waiting
At the end of the day.
(The Lady Is Waiting: Paul Williams – 1972)

That song made me a fan of Paul Williams – something few men would admit in the 1970’s. Williams was a pop singer/songwriter, the man who wrote many of the hits for Three Dog Night, The Carpenters, Helen Reddy, and Barbara Streisand. He came along just at the right time for me. Songs like We’ve Only Just Begun and You and Me Against the World, seemed to describe the new home and family Kathy and I were just starting.  It was while listening to the three Paul Williams’ albums I purchased in 1974, that I also found Kathy’s third song, I Won’t Last A Day Without You. The truth of this song became apparent to me every day as Kathy and I experienced the problems and difficulties that came with new careers, raising two children, and dealing with unforeseen emergencies. I’d always imagined that the man and husband, with his “small lusty dreams” in hand, dealt with all the tough issues, while the wife and mother took care of the children. Well I quickly learned that I couldn’t handled those situations alone, and never had to. Kathy was always with me, leading the charge, standing by my side, or backing me up. We were beginners, lovers, and parents; we were a pair, a partnership – a marriage. Paul Williams’ songs best described those times and those feelings for me.

I don’t recall the exact sequence of events that brought Kathy’s fourth song to my attention. I think it was around the time of our 20^th Wedding Anniversary (1995), when we were driving home from Northern California during a get-away weekend. Toñito and Prisa were in high school at the time, and Kathy had borrowed a cassette tape of Eric Clapton’s Slow Hand album. I became a fan of Eric Clapton in a very roundabout way. While recognizing his early contributions to rock and roll in the 1960’s, I only really started liking his work, when I heard Tears In Heaven on the Unplugged album in 1992. My devotion to him only increased when I discovered his close ties to the Blues in albums like From The Cradle in 1994 and Riding With The King in 2000. Learning of my interest in Clapton, Kathy had borrowed an audiocassette from Liz Killmond, a daughter of her friend Mary. While most of the tunes in the 1977 album were only so-so, in my opinion, the lyrics of one song, Wonderful Tonight, had the same inexplicable impact as the songs of Paul Williams seventeen years before.

It’s late in the evening; she’s wondering what clothes to wear.
She puts on her make-up and brushes her long blonde hair.
And then she asks me, “Do I look all right?”
And I say, “Yes, you look wonderful tonight”.

We go to a party and everyone turns to see
This beautiful lady that’s walking around with me.
And then she asks me, “Do you feel all right?”
And I say, “Yes, I feel wonderful tonight”.

I feel wonderful because I see
The love light in your eyes.
And the wonder of it all
Is that you just don’t realize how much I love you.

It’s time to go home now and I’ve got an aching head,
So I give her the car keys and she helps me to bed.
And then I tell her, as I turn out the light,
I say, “My darling, you were wonderful tonight.
Oh my darling, you were wonderful tonight.”
(Wonderful Tonight: Eric Clapton – 1974)

The song merely described one evening in the life of a husband taking his wife to a party, but it was a facsimile of the many times I’d gone on a date, to a party, or to dinner with Kathy. Inevitably she would ask, “How do I look?” And I would always answer honestly with, “You look wonderful!” Clapton set those simple words and feelings to music and forever memorialized how I felt about Kathy when we went out.

I heard the fifth love song on December 30, 2007, at Catalina’s Bar and Grill. Kathy had arranged the evening of dinner and jazz as her Christmas gift to me (and us). I’d been captivated with Catalina’s ever since our first time there in April of 2003, when I took Kathy to celebrate the 30^th anniversary of our first date in 1973. The food, atmosphere, and music had been magical, and the songs performed by Peter Cincotti, memorialized the evening. In 2007 we heard another singer, Tierney Sutton, introducing a song by Allen and Marilyn Bergman called On My Way To You. Until that moment, I had not been particularly impressed with Sutton, but I was riveted by the words of the song. They seemed to explain the importance of every choice and every event in my life, even the negative ones, and how necessary they were for my meeting Kathy in 1973.

So often as I wait for sleep
I find myself reciting
The words I’ve said or should have said
Like scenes that need rewriting.

The smiles I never answered
Doors perhaps I should have opened
Song forgotten in the morning.

I relive the roles I’ve played
The tears I may have squandered
The many pipers I have paid
Along the road I’ve wandered.

Yet all the time I knew it
Love was somewhere out there waiting
Though I may regret a kiss or two

If I had changed a single day
What went amiss or went astray
I may have never found my way to you.

I wouldn’t change a thing that happened
On my way to you
(On My Way To You: Marilyn & Allen Bergman – 1987)

I was so moved by those lyrics that I wrote an essay about the song and posted it for Valentine’s Day in 2008 (see On My Way To You). I thought that song pretty much closed the door on any new love songs I would find for Kathy. The songs I’d chosen over the years covered so many aspects of our relationship, and my feelings about Kathy, that I didn’t think there would be any new revelations after 40 years – but then I heard Don Williams.

Don Williams was one of the country western artists who was in the last group of vinyl records I converted for my brother-in-law, Greg (see A Good Day For Me).  Although I liked all Williams’ music and songs, I didn’t pay attention to the lyrics while I converted them to digital form. It wasn’t until days later, as I was driving home late one evening, that I heard the words on my cars’ stereo:

Years from now,
I’ll want you years from now.
I’ll hold you years from now,
As I hold you tonight.

You are my one true friend,
Always my one true friend,
And I’ll love you till life’s end,
As I love you tonight.

I know this world that we live in
Can be hard now and then,
And it will be again.
Many times we’ve been down.

Still love has kept us together
For the flame never dies.
When I look in you eyes
The future I see.

Holding you years from now.
Wanting you years from now.
Loving you years from now,
As I love you tonight.
(Years From Now: C. Cochran & R. Cook - 1981)

As the words and melody faded, I sat transfixed in the car. The singer told of the youthful exuberance of first love, the satisfaction of overcoming hardships together during marriage, and the hope of keeping the passions of love alive, many “years from now”. But I was luckier than the singer. I was able to be in the three places he described. I had expressed those same “lusty dreams” of keeping our love alive in the early days of our courtship, and when we raised a family. Now, as a much older man, the song filled me with the satisfaction of being able to look back at our life together and say:

“I love you Kathleen Mavourneen, as much today as on the first day I loved you.”