And these few precious days
I'll spend with you
These precious days
I'll spend with you
The beauty of the album, besides the fabulous songs themselves, is the gentle acoustic treatment. Nothing loud or brassy. Just guitar, keyboard, harmonica, gentle percussion for rhythm. Willie's voice is the main country element; the rest is light jazz, pop, folk.
Evening summer breeze
Warbling of a meadowlark
Moonlight in Vermont
So. This gentle album, with songs by the likes Hoagy Carmichael, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Dorothy Fields, and Kurt Weill, brought back memories of a very specific time in my life. And it's all about love, but not the romantic kind. It's about dancing away the wee hours of the morning with my tiny baby girl on my shoulder.
Missed the Saturday dance
Hear they crowded the floor
Couldn't bear it without you
Don't get around much anymore
Like most newborns, my Baby Kate got hungry in the middle of the night and then took some time to get back to sleep. So I'd put Willie Nelson's Stardust on the stereo, and with her slung over my shoulder, I'd keep time patting her back and we'd dance:
Sometimes I wonder
Why I spend the lonely nights
Dreaming of a song
The melody
Haunts my reverie
Maybe just a gentle waltz. Maybe a little quick step.
Grab your coat and get your hat
Leave your worry on the doorstep
Just direct your feet
To the sunny side of the street
Even as new and tiny as she was and as sure as I was that she'd gone back to sleep, Kate's little head would bobble around between the songs and she'd look up to me as if to say, "When's the next song coming on?" And then we'd just keep dancing the night away. Swaying back and forth to the brilliant music.
Other arms reach out to me
Other eyes smile tenderly
Still in peaceful dreams I see
The road leads back to you
Playing this particular collection of songs again sent me straight back to being a new mother. Every wonderful song reminded me of those first uncertain nights of wondering if I was doing everything - anything - right. Wondering if she'd ever go to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time.
I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood
I know I could, always be good
To one who'll watch over me
Every song, every arrangement is just perfect. Soothing, beautiful, memorable. I swear I could almost feel my milk let down! That's the power of music. It's physical. It's emotional. It reaches places inside you that you'd forgotten were there. Example? In my first trimester, plagued by morning sickness, I used to play a cassette of Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld (don't ask!) in the car. Even 36 years later whenever I hear the "Can-Can" song, I get nauseous. That's the physical power of music.
I need your love
I need your love
God speed your love to me
I wonder if grown-up Kate knows Willie Nelson's Stardust album? I wonder if she heard those particular songs today she'd feel a weird little pang that she can't put her finger on? Probably not. But it's a damn fine album and perfect for soothing a newborn babe and dancing the night away. Give it a listen sometime.
Blue skies
Smiling at me
Nothing but blue skies
Do I see
