twenty-one times
If you have followed this blog for very long, you have heard me make reference to my songwriting days with my friend, Billy Crockett. This week, his wife Dodee posted a video of him singing what is perhaps my favorite song we wrote together. The idea grew out of our reading Paul Bowles’ amazing novel The Sheltering Sky
together. We were particularly moved by this paragraph.
Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don't know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It's that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don't know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.
Our conversation led us to this song. Here is Billy offering a wonderful performance. I have also included the lyrics below.
she saw the sun go down
twenty-one times
twenty-one times
in thirty-five years
she saw the sun go down
she thought there’d be a million
and she thought that she would see them
she saw the sun go down
twenty-one times
she stayed and danced all night
only one time
only one time
in thirty-five years
she stayed and danced all night
the moonlight fell like laughter
on her happy ever after
but she stayed and danced all night
only one time
and over new england
geese are flying south
a november nightfall
settles round about
while a lighthouse
calls another home
she walked away from love
so many times
so many times in thirty-five years
she walked away from love
and hearing lesser voices
she turned them into choices
she walked away from love
so many times
and over new england
geese are flying south
a november nightfall
settles round about
while a lighthouse
calls another home
hearing lesser voices
she turned them into choices
she walked away from love
she stayed and danced all night
she saw the sun go down
twenty-one times
Peace,
Milton
