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‘Till There Was You

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Happy Valentine’s Day, Dear Baboons.

Of course there are love songs galore. I’ve heard it said that every song is a love song.

That’s the sort of thing that sounds at first like it could be true, but it would take some deft explaining to convince me that the current #1 song, “Dark Horse“, belongs in the love song category alongside Meredith Willson’s “Till’ There Was You”. When it comes to romance, I’m not one for flowery language, but even I can see the difference between …

There were birds in the sky But I never saw them winging No, I never saw them at all Till there was you.

… and …

She’s a beast I call her Karma (come back) She eats your heart out Like Jeffrey Dahmer (woo) Be careful Try not to lead her on Shorty’s heart is on steroids Cause her love is so strong You may fall in love When you meet her

Call me a crabby old man, but I’ll stick with Willson.

Not only was this economical ode part of a major Broadway hit, the song was good enough for an upstart superstar to sing in front of the Queen of England.

http://youtu.be/jTGuP_hpvWo

Meredith Willson was an interesting character, by the way. He was once a member of John Philip Sousa’s band, and “The Music Man” was his first attempt at creating a Broadway show. His previous claim to fame was as an announcer on Tallulah Bankhead’s radio program in the early 1950’s.

It took eight years to get the thing written and produced, and he got credit for all of it – music, lyrics and book. The innovation he brought to the stage is displayed in the opening number, when a crew of traveling salesmen mimic a train while reciting an unrhymed poem that entertains while it elegantly takes care of one of a playwright’s most difficult chores – exposition.

And even though it’s all about marketing and deception, that boisterous opening sequence is still more romantic than “Dark Horse.” By far.

What’s your favorite love song?

37 thoughts on “‘Till There Was You”

  2. John Denver’s Annie’s Song is the first one that pops into my head.

    Going back in time, I’ve always thought Bicycle Built for Two is charming. I like the idea of a charming love song.

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  4. Here’s an unconventional one, but it’s what first popped into my mind. Leader of the Band by Dan Fogelberg, a song written out of love for a father. Having had at times a tense relationship with my own father, it gave me goosebumps and tears every time I heard it. Happy to say we repaired our relationship, but it still gives me goosebumps.

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  5. So many great songs to choose from, but my sentimental favorite is “A Child is Born” by Thad Jones. Loved it so much I insisted it be played at our wedding. Wife likes it too, but not as crazy about it as me. Back in 1978, all I wanted was to make sure that the love song played to death that year, “Just the Way You Are” by Billy Joel, was NOT played at our wedding.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  6. I’m shocked, I thought the baboons would have been all over this one. I’m not much for mushy love songs, prefer the ones with a sense of humor and perhaps a hint of cynicism. Wasband loved the Johnny Mathis variety of idealized love songs, but his use of them as tools for conquest pretty much soured me on them. This is more up my alley:

    In a pinch I’ll settle for chocolate! Happy Valentine’s Day, all.

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  7. Lest you think I’m a barbarian (which I sometimes am), here’s another offering to my baboon Valentines:

    TAKING OFF EMILY DICKINSON’S CLOTHES

    by Billy Collins

    First, her tippet made of tulle,
    easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
    on the back of a wooden chair.

    And her bonnet,
    the bow undone with a light forward pull.

    Then the long white dress, a more
    complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
    buttons down the back,
    so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
    before my hands can part the fabric,
    like a swimmer’s dividing water,
    and slip inside.

    You will want to know
    that she was standing
    by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
    motionless, a little wide-eyed,
    looking out at the orchard below,
    the white dress puddled at her feet
    on the wide-board, hardwood floor.

    The complexity of women’s undergarments
    in nineteenth-century America
    is not to be waved off,
    and I proceeded like a polar explorer
    through clips, clasps, and moorings,
    catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
    sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

    Later, I wrote in a notebook
    it was like riding a swan into the night,
    but, of course, I cannot tell you everything –
    the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
    how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
    how there were sudden dashes
    whenever we spoke.

    What I can tell you is
    it was terribly quiet in Amherst
    that Sabbath afternoon,
    nothing but a carriage passing the house,
    a fly buzzing in a windowpane.

    So I could plainly hear her inhale
    when I undid the very top
    hook-and-eye fastener of her corset

    and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
    the way some readers sigh when they realize
    that Hope has feathers,
    that reason is a plank,
    that life is a loaded gun
    that looks right at you with a yellow eye.

    – From Picnic, Lightning, (c) Billy Collins, 1998

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    1. Regarding your shock at the reticence, or otherwise, of the Baboons in naming their favorite love songs, I have to say that I am always nonplussed when asked to name my favorite anything. My brain just doesn’t compute that kind of singularity. I don’t have a favorite anything. That said, there are romantic songs I find especially affecting. Unsurprisingly (for me), most of them are not contemporary songs. The songs of Henry Lawson I find especially resonant. Here is a link to the lyrics for “Reedy River”:
      http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/folk-song-lyrics/Reedy_River.htm
      Another tune that comes to mind is “Bogie’s Bonnie Bell”. The version I hear in my mind is the one by Andy M.
      Stewart.
      Now, as to the intersection of Billy Collins and Emily Dickinson- that’s a bullseye for me. I have long been a fan of both Collins and Dickinson. I have a handful of Dickinson biographies and those of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, her mentor and “preceptor”. I am delighted to learn of a Billy Collins treatment of Dickinson.

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      1. Bill, I find it hard to pick my favorite anything, also. The trick for me to participate is to either just pick one of my favorites or pick my favorite thing at the moment (since my favorite varies with my mood). I like it when you add to the conversation, so you might consider just putting down the first thing that pops into your mind.

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        1. That’s sort of what I did in this case, Edith, but I confess I usually just take a pass on those days when called upon to come up with a favorite anything. It’s just a foreign concept to me.

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      2. Bill, you must learn to “bend the rules”. I never take the question too literally, just answer something close to it – otherwise I might not post at all, and I’d miss that. 🙂

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  9. First one that comes to mind is a song by Metamora that I probably first heard on TLGMS (see glossary at top of page) – same album Little Potato was on. Since it doesn’t appear to be on Youtube, here are the lyrics, but I sure wish you could hear the music…

    Metamora – Morningtime lyrics; Download Morningtime 320kbps mp3

    Come on baby it’s morning time / Do we, do we
    Time to open those sleepy eyes / Do we have to?
    I’m so tired I could lay back down,
    Hold you till we are lost and found
    Do we have to go?

    Come on get up and lend a hand / Do we, do we
    I put on the kettle and frying pan / Do we have to?
    Two fried eggs and some hot corn bread
    Roll my sweetie out of this bed
    Do we have to go?

    Raise your head from that pillow / Do we, do we
    There’s things about you I don’t know / Do we have to?
    You lie so still and you sleep so sound,
    But in the night you were tossing ’round
    Do we have to go?

    It’s the darkest morning I’ve ever seen / Do we, do we
    The wind is blowing the locust trees / Do we have to?
    The sky is turning into blue
    And I am falling in love with you
    Do we have to go?

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      1. MIG, I clicked Share, then copy & pasted the link that showed in the box below but your link looks different than the one I pasted. Not sure why.

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  14. I honestly cannot find a song that speaks of love as I see it now. The last time I could–the last time I loved–it was this song from Gosford Park:

    And the lady’s favorite, from the same film:

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  17. I just laid my hands on a tape I made for Husband, V-Day years ago (some of it right off The Morning Show, I now admit). Here are highlights:
    Stay – Maurice Willliams & the Zodiacs
    There You Are, Little Styar – The Elegants
    I Only Have Eyes for You – The Flamingos
    Devoted to You – Everly Brothers
    Every Day – Buddy Holly
    Small World, Isn’t It – Johnny Mathis
    Theme from A Man and A Woman
    Rosevillle Fair – Bill Stains
    Do You Wanta Dance – Mamas and the Papas
    Midnight on the Oasis – Maria Muldaur
    Our House – Crosby Stills Nash & Young
    Harvest Moon – Neil Young

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  19. Evening–
    I hardly ever get the words to songs. But in high school it was The Police doing ‘Every Breath You Take’ that I connected to a certain girl who didn’t know I was alive. 🙂
    http://youtu.be/wdS-jpFgRo4

    This shouldn’t be confused with ‘stalking’ right?
    Yesterday I was working onstage. Four girls were talking and I wasn’t really listening until I heard one of them say ‘I’m not in love, I’m in lust. Maybe. I’m in one or the other!’ and they all laughed. As they walked across the stage I said to them:
    “It will be to your benefit to figure out the difference between those two things…”

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  20. My mom was teasing Dad today that his old girlfriend has moved into the same retirement complex as them. Dad claims he only took this girl to one football game because Mom was busy and Mom told him to take somebody else.
    Mom and Dad have been married 65 years. I think it’s hysterical Mom still remembered that girls name while Dad says he doesn’t remember her!

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  22. The audio is not very good on this clip, so if you’d rather not listen, lyrics follow:

    Tell the rose not to bloom, the stream to flow.
    Tell the rain not to fall, the tree to grow.
    Tell the high summer sky to lose its blue,
    but don’t tell that I don’t belong with you.

    You could send me away and I would go.
    I would go but I would not go too far.
    You could send me home but you would know,
    Home to me is anywhere you are.

    When I met you there was nothing to decide,
    It was simply something happening inside.
    I felt strange for a minute, then I knew,
    That I finally felt complete when I found you.

    You could send me away and I would go.
    I would go but I would not go too far.
    You could send me home but you would know,
    Home to me is anywhere you are.

    There are those who really never know their minds.
    They’re confused and they’re not the staying kind.
    They don’t know what they’re really looking for.
    I don’t suffer from that problem any more.

    You could send me away and I would go.
    I would go but I would not go too far.
    You could send me home but you would know,
    Home to me is anywhere you are.

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