February 13, 2019
I woke up with two songs in my head this morning. But only one of them is still haunting me.
The first song that came to me was a song we all know:
Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.
It’s a song about not taking life too seriously. When I went to bed last night I had three things that were bothering me, and this song could be a message from some level of my consciousness reminding me to lighten up.
But then, as I lay in bed on this rainy day off from work, another song occurred to me, one not so cheerful as the first. Any Day Now is a song that I recently rediscovered, a song written by Burt Bacharach and Bob Hilliard in 1962. Many artists have recorded it, including Elvis Presley and Ronnie Milsap, but my favorite version is the original by Chuck Jackson:
Any day now I will hear you say, “Goodbye my love,” and you’ll be on your way. Then my wild beautiful bird, you will have flown, oh, any day now I’ll be all alone, whoa.
It’s a song about the fear of losing a lover, and while it’s beautifully performed on keyboard by Bacharach and vocally by Jackson in a 1965 video (google Any Day Now Chuck Jackson youtube), it manages to be both upbeat and depressing at the same time.
I’m not sure why this song popped into my head when it did. Maybe because it’s a rainy, gloomy day. But it stirred up memories of my last girlfriend, a beautiful bird who flew away after a brief romance two and a half years ago. Listening to Any Day Now allows me to indulge briefly in self pity: Boo hoo hoo, poor me, she done gone and left me. Thanks a lot, Chuck. I don’t want to feel sorry for myself, but I guess it’s OK every once in a while. Singing the blues is good therapy sometimes. I just don’t want to get stuck there.
Besides, I choose to believe that even loss can be a good teacher, though it certainly doesn’t feel that way at the time. Part of me still feels sad at the loss of that last relationship, maybe because I had known her since junior high school, which also happens to be when I first heard Any Day Now. And maybe that’s why that song is still haunting me now. But I trust that my higher power is leading me on the right path and that my ex-girlfriend’s inner being is guiding her in the right direction too. Well, OK, maybe her inner being screwed up by leaving me, but who said our intuition is perfect?
I’d rather row my boat gently and merrily than row while bemoaning my fate. But for today, Any Day Now is my theme song. Do check it out on youtube. Chuck Jackson is elegant and touching, although the 1965-era lighting on his black skin isn’t what it should be.
For the rest of my days, Row row row your boat is my song of choice. And merry is my path of choice in this dream life.
David Wigginton 