SEPTEMBER 22, 1984 IN SONGS AND STORIES PART 2
It’s one thing to love and another to feel loved
To feel love yet fear love can still go away
Together we’ve felt both loved and the loving
That loving and being loved are one and the same
To hold and to be held, to talk and to listen
Both to be cared for and care
To trust and be trusted, to hope and have hope for
To be there and to know you are there
Chorus
For love is the night that we lay together
When both of us know we’ve come home
Love is the day we spend in the mountains
Share what has been ours alone
Love is the man I am when I’m with you
The woman that you are with me
Love is the reason that we are together
All that we are and all we can be
That’s the last verse and the chorus of a song called All We Can Be. It was introduced at a concert on September 22, 1984. In this Dear Partner Letter and the one that preceded it, we’re using songs from that night to demonstrate things learned after living through and coming out o of challenging and difficult times. The second half of that concert began with me walking on stage alone with my guitar and sharing the idea that love is the reason we are together. All that we are and all we can be.
Dear Partner,
For me many of the challenges of life are illuminated in a song I would write not long after we did this concert, may we be one more time courageous than the times we are afraid, and may we doubtful one less time than we have faith, may we get to know our demons then in time set them, may we find the missing peace. To every puzzle, to all our wars, may we be the missing peace someone else is searching for. And in the process learn what it is live a life governed by truth and love. I feel in September of 1984 we were beginning to understand what it meant to try to choose to live such a life.
After the song All We Can Be, Ted Brancato comes out. I put down the guitar and accompanied only by his wonderful piano playing sing A Dream for a Memory.
A dream is a memory whose time hasn’t come
A memory’s a dream I had some time
Now I’ve come to an age where I half filled the page
Before I write one more line
Chorus
I’ll give you a dream for a memory for the memory of tonight
I’ll give you a dream for a memory we’ll make tonight
Then you come out and we sing It’s Been Good, It’s Been Bad. We trade lines back and forth and then meet at the chorus, with Ted providing the accompaniment. Before we start singing, we laugh a little about what I’m supposed to do with my hands when they’re not holding up a guitar.
P: It’s been a while since I’ve seen you how’s it been?
M: Do you want the truth or the lie? Cause I can tell stories you wouldn’t believe
P: I believe, it’s there in your eyes
Chorus
Both: It’s been good it’s been bad been the best that I had
It’s been the worst that I’ve known
Never shared more by far than when I lay in her arms
I’ve never been more alone
Then the band came back and joined us for a song called The Night We Tried to Get Young with Tom Collier and Dan Dean showing us just how good they are. In fact their solo is where we’ll start the tune.
Tryin’ hard to be somehow found guilty of having some innocent fun
Never felt older then the morning after the night that we tried to get young
We followed that with three songs about two people and their one story. A song about how one of them goes off to sea, another song about what it means to wait for their return, and a third song for them to sing together.
First to speak is the one who leaves…
It's been forty years now since first you lay with me
Forty years since a lighthouse saved a body from the sea
That's been a lot of living, loving, laughing, learning how to cry
Almost forty years now since first we said goodbye
Then we hear from the one who stays…
When the sea’s about to claim you she first comes to your eyes
You break it to me gently say again it is the last time
You’ll be going off to sea you lean against the kitchen wall
You say you know how hard it’s on me but you’ve no idea at all
For you’ve not waited nights by candlelight for no one coming home
Counted days that wouldn’t end and found the bed alone
Then a third song they sing together and share again the ties that bind.
So it’s gone for forty years so forty years have gone
Times we knew it was so right times we wished it was wrong
I don’t know all the reasons why
I don’t trust them that do
But I know I’ll know no truer friend
Or better love than you
At this point it’s my turn to leave. You and the band do a rousing version of I Don’t Know Where The Good Times Go But I Won’t Be Far Behind ‘Em.
I don’t know where the good times go but I won’t be far behind them
I don’t know where the good times go but I’m goin’ out to find them
I can’t stay where the sun don’t shine dark clouds aint no friend of mine
I don’t know where the good times go but I won’t be far behind them
Then you sing My Father’s Footsteps, and you dedicate it to your dad who’s in the audience. When it’s over you wish him a happy birthday. Sixteen months later you would sing it for him again. At his memorial.
As a kid my dad and me walked together by the sea
Tried as only children can to match the strides there in the sand
Of those footsteps my father’s footsteps
When I was too tired to walk he carried me we wouldn’t talk
Til he got me home and yet on the beach I saw one set
Of footsteps my father’s footsteps
I never wanted him to watch but God I hope he sees
The way I saw the way he walked and how I tried to be
In those footsteps my father’s footsteps
I rejoin you and we sing a song we introduced the year before, Mad Man on a High Wire. A song about you and your mischievous curiosity that makes you want to peak behind every closed door.
He was born for adventure now he’s dying to go
Higher and higher with no net below
The odds may grow longer with each risk that he runs
Till the one in a million is a million to one
Chorus
Mad man on a high wire laying it all on the line
In the spirit of the Spirit of St. Louie always one step from falling or flying
Then a song for my parents about perseverance, even in the hardest of times, or maybe especially in the hardest of times.
Loving you forever’s been the easy part
The day to day from time to time has been hard
Along the way we found and lost a dream or two
The only thing that’s never changed is I love you
Chorus
After all we made it this far
Sometimes we had our backs against the wall
While it seems we’re always finding some new scar
We made it this far after all
We followed that with a song inspired by a conversation I had with Drager’s dad about all the times when he was a kid he wanted to find a way out of his life and get a new one, to have Some New Mountain to Climb.
Sometimes I’d like to start over I’d like to start over sometime
Where nobody knew me and nobody cared I had Some New Mountain to Climb
Then we introduced a song about a Viet Nam vet who came back not as the person who left but as someone with a War Ravaged Mind.
I got married in sixty-six
Don’t know why Judy waited but it wasn’t for this
We never could have made it she had known
That the man she loved wasn’t ever coming home
Moved to Alaska in sixty-eight
Try to put our lives together and outrun the hate
Heard there were a lot of us crazies here
Half minded men living in the last frontier
Chorus
War may be over there’s still battles to fight
And one will be raging again tonight
I’ve tried running but I just can’t hide
From the scenes I keep seeing and the feelings inside
This war ravaged min inside this war ravaged mind
As we began to wind things down we sang Winners and Losers.
There’s not too much between the winners and the losers
It’s a fine line between the beggars and the choosers
Not far from being born to dyin’
It’s a long way from anywhere once you give up tryin’
Then we headed for home in the car we used to call The Magic Carpet.
The magic carpet, oh, how she could fly
Oh, how she made the times roll by
On a night like this those feelings they just comes back alive
So lets roll the magic carpet out tonight
Then a couple encores. The first one celebrating that one wonderful transformational thing, love.
I know what it means to say goodbye
Know all the reasons somebody cries
Know how it feels when a dream won’t come true
And I know what it means When I Say I Love You
Finally, we ask everyone to join us for The Song We Sing Together. But before we do let me say thank you. It was something to stand on that stage with you and share that very special night.
Everyone has a song to sing a special something each can bring
There’s something more when we’re listening for The Song We Sing Together
