Good Night My Love

Wow. Lot's of closure going on. As I've posted here before, I've been working on a tribute CD of old And Tears Fell music, re-recorded with people who knew Sam, as a sort of requiem. I can dedicate films and plays to her 'til the cows come home, but it still wouldn't close the door on our musical history together - thus the album.

We've been working on it weekends here and there for the past year and a half at Westside Studios (the digital digs of Brian "Dogfish" "Full Life Crisis" Chase), and are now at the mixing stage. It's packed with the best songs from our first three albums, and yet, I knew I wanted to write something new to kind of tie everything up in a nice bow. For the last few months, I've been playing around with a chord progression that can best be described as somewhere between this, this and this. And maybe a bit of this and this. And definitely this. But until today, whenever I thought of putting down lyrics, I only saw a blank page.

For whatever reason, today I was ready. As I was driving home from dropping the kids at school, a phrase came to me: "Two satellites in orbit", then: "Children holding hands". I started writing them down, and something just shook loose. Suddenly there was a fully-formed song staring at me from the page. Yes, it's sad. VERY sad. But it's the ultimate statement of where I'm at, and how I feel. I've composed music for Sam before - mostly instrumentals and one love song I wrote and recorded for her birthday in 1999. But I've never written a farewell like this - a farewell not only to the woman I spent twenty years with, but that entire life. It's VERY bittersweet, this saying farewell, but in order to make forward progress, one needs to make peace with the past and let it stay in the past.

My friend Conor has volunteered to record it, and if it turns out, I will include it at the end of Requiem, maybe as a "hidden" track.

Good Night My Love © 2007

We were children holding hands
Once upon a time
Two satellites in orbit
Around a love sublime

We kissed in darkness, made a pact
And held each other tight
You and me against the world
It all just felt so right

Chorus:
(Good night my love)
All you were to me
(Good night my love)
Is etched into my memory
(Good night my love)
And everything that was
(Good night my love)
Will always be inside of me

Your presence, it still lingers here
From night until the day
Your image smiling, voice in song
A ghostly cabaret

Lonely tears I’ve shed for you
I reach out for your touch
And take with me the memory
Of times I loved so much

Chorus:
(Good night my love)
All you were to me
(Good night my love)
Is etched into my memory
(Good night my love)
And everything that was
(Good night my love)
Will always be inside of me

Break:
Waking alone and gripped by hollow fear
All that I know is reduced to blur of tears
Time wasn’t on your side and I wonder - how I got here
So good night, my dear

One day we might see each other
Passing in the night
Until then I’ll draw the curtains
And put out the light

If you stop along your journey
Think of me sometime
Remember that brief shining moment
That we called a life

Chorus:
(Good night my love)
All you were to me
(Good night my love)
Is etched into my memory
(Good night my love)
And everything that was
(Good night my love)
Will always be inside of me

Good night my love
Good night my love