https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfjJGNaA1xU
When I was in my early 20s I wrote a handful of songs. They were emotional and full of brittle wit, I remember. One of them has always stayed with me. I remember exactly when I wrote it, who it was about (ie the person I didn’t need and the person who didn’t need me), and the first verse and chorus has stuck in my head. It sometimes pops up when I’m walking and in need of something to entertain myself with. This happened last night as I wandered home from the tube and the supermarket like several million other people.
Then I realised that I could finish it. So this is a musical conversation with myself across a vast gap of time.
I wrote the first two stanzas having been overwhelmed by the beauty of Pamukkale in Turkey. We spent the whole afternoon and evening there and left as it got dark. The way that time almost stood still in the beautiful evening light I could only express as romantic love at that time. This fragment of the song (I’m sure I wrote more but can’t remember it) pleased me when I was young because it had a big tune, and big emotions. I’m pretty sure I thought it was more in the territory of Barbra Streisand’s seminal Guilty album, than the quirky, difficult, singer-songwriters I was listening to at that time.
Pamukkale
When all the world is evening sunshine
You’re all the world to me
Looking back it all seems simple
No taint to the memory
That’s when I loved you
Needed you, oh was it before?
Before the pain came, always the pain
The pain of not needing or not being needed
How to stop this pain?
A question left hanging in time
But an answer at last I find
The pain is essential, the pain is right
Until its not, and when it’s not, it will stop
How to tell someone at 20
The stupidly simple truth
That you can’t love unless it’s painful
So just call the whole thing love
Love is all there is and love is no big deal
It’s the evening sunshine that’s real
A question left hanging in time
Processing in my mind
An answer takes it’s own sweet time
I’m so grateful I was given mine
So many were denied
Love is all there is and love is no big deal
It’s the evening sunshine that’s real
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