Where did you hide that shining light?

As I wrote in January of 2006, when this song first appeared in A Year of Songs, it's the third song I wrote -- and considered a real song, as opposed to one of the several score of pretty awful early attempts. What can I say -- I grew up writing free verse... no rhyme, no meter... lots of self-indulgence. It takes a while to get into the very different discipline of songwriting. Or it did for me.

Anyway, this tune's maybe a little long on portentuous vagueness -- though I was clearly shooting for evocative mystery.

But, believe it or not, it's all more or less grounded in actual events. Where the song says, a man said you were the queen... well, that's exactly what someone said about the young woman the song addresses. To this day, I really don't know what he meant.

And that blinding, shining, white light? Well... someone stole it.

I Called Your Name
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Saturday, January 21, 2006

lyrics
I Called Your Name

I called your name
when I was afraid
but you were upstate
and you didn't come
though I thought you might

there was a time when I'd play any game
just to be alive
there was a time
long enough to wait
time enough to wait
time enough to bring it back
and stash it away

a man thought you were the queen
did not mean a thing
but I thought it did
and if you were the queen
I wondered
and I wondered
how you kept it hid
and how did you steal
that shining light
how did you steal that blinding light
how did you steal that shining light from me
how did you steal that pure white light from me

(C)1972, 2007, TK Major

The way things had to be...

Sometimes you meet someone and it just seems like it's meant to be.

That's how it felt when I met the girl I'll call Jennifer.

Our eyes locked as I got up to play in front of the small, coffeehouse crowd and I felt, a little, like I was playing just to her.

She was with a friend of mine -- who it turned out was her ex-boyfriend -- but, for me, she was pretty much the only one in the room. I'd sung a song about suicide -- she'd said "Don't you just feel that way, sometimes?" and I said, "Yeah," -- and we talked for a while about some of the ideas behind my songs, touching on love, death, and fate, suicide and responsibilty to the living. It was an interesting, surprisingly lively conversation that wound from one provocative or resonant idea to the next.

Brazenly slipping my card across the table to her, I was somehow sure that I would hear from her again... I'm not usually so confident -- much the opposite. But, looking into her eyes, I felt certain that fate would bring us back together.

That Sunday I wrote the fleeting shadow of a song below, "Jennifer" (not the real girl's name, mind you) -- starting simply from that pretty name and a sad, bittersweet mood... and not moving too far from there. It was my idea to fill out the lyrics, make some sort of story about it. In my mind, the song was very much about someone ending their life.

Days went by and I didn't hear from Jennifer, though I still felt, somehow, that I would.

Late in the week I saw my friend, Jennifer's ex, sitting alone at the counter of my local coffee house and sat next to him. He was unusually quiet.

Finally he said, "Remember my friend, Jennifer?"

I nodded. Of course I did. She'd barely left my mind -- but I didn't say it.

"She died."

I was stunned. I'm seldom truly without words but I couldn't say aynthing.

Finally, I said, "How?"

"No one knows. She was having friends over for Sunday dinner last weekend and when they arrived she didn't come to the door. Finally, they peered through the window and saw her lying in the kitchen. She was already gone."

In the back of my mind I couldn't help but think of our conversation -- but she'd seemed so full of life and I was so convinced that we'd both intended to somehow see each other again...

Eventually, we found out it was a heart attack -- the result of a previously unrecognized congenital defect. She was only 28.

Fate... it's a funny thing.


Jennifer
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Friday, December 30, 2005

lyrics
Jennifer
Jennifer
I swear it's not your fault
It's always been the same
It'll always be this way
Jennifer
you're not to blame

Jennifer
Jennifer, you're not to blame
Jennifer
Jennifer, you're not to blame
Jennifer
Jennifer, you're not to blame
Jennifer

Jennifer, you're not to blame
Jennifer

(C)1996, TK Major

(C)2007, TK Major