Today I was in Corners, the small grocery store in Mendocino where I shop two or three times a week, and a song emerged from the music mix they were playing on the store stereo that reminded me of a song I wrote circa 1996, otherwise known as twenty-seven years ago.
The song I was reminded of is entitled Golden Light, and I remember when I wrote it because I had just moved to Berkeley in 1995 after living in Sacramento for fifteen years, and being in a new place starting a new life inspired a bunch of new songs, one of which was Golden Light.
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Driving home from town in my little old pickup with two baskets of marvelous groceries, I was trying to remember why I never recorded Golden Light, when I noticed my speedometer had stopped working and said I was going zero-miles-per-hour when I knew I was going much faster than zero, and the disparity made me laugh.
Arriving home, I remembered I did record Golden Light a couple years after writing the song, but chose not to include the tune on the album I was making at the time because… I couldn’t remember why.
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After I put the groceries away, I went on my daily walk, and a few minutes into my walk I had the thought Maybe I didn’t include the song on an album because the lyrics were sexist. Could that be? I certainly didn’t think the lyrics were sexist when I wrote the song, never having been one to consciously write sexist songs. However, a few years into my Berkeley sojourn I sublet a room in the house I was renting to woman named Z who had identified as a lesbian for twenty years and was beginning to think she might be bisexual. She and I had several long talks about sexual identity in a sexist society. So maybe those conversations figured into my decision not to include Golden Light on an album.
Then again… what were the lyrics to Golden Light?
I started to sing the song as I walked along.
Late last Tuesday evening, after midnight one or two,
I was sunk in bitter loneliness, fighting those killing blues
Came a flash outside my window, a burst of golden light
Lifted me from my despair, launched me into the night.
Something made me, something made me go
Went on down to Jackie’s joint, thought I’d tip a few
There she was playin’ slide with her band and…
That was all I could remember. Hmm. There she was playin’ slide with her band and…
*
I walked on and heard the sound of geese, hundreds of them, calling to each other, and I thought Migrating geese! Where are they? I was just coming out of a heavily wooded stretch of road and caught sight of a crooked V of hundreds of geese high above me. I got out my little camera and tried to get a photo of them, but didn’t have time to zoom closer before they were gone.
Then I remembered another line from Golden Light. Oh my God she could play those blues.
*
For the rest of the forty-five minute walk, fragments of lyrics came to me, but not the entire song. When I got home, I busied myself with bringing in firewood for the afternoon-into-evening fire, and while building the fire I wondered if I might have the lyrics to the song in a Word document on my computer.
After I got the fire going in the woodstove, I made some fabulous hummus using sunflower seed butter instead of tahini to go with the garbanzos and lemon juice and garlic and hot sauce and a splash of white wine and curry powder, and whilst eating the good goo on crackers, I remembered what Golden Light was about and thought maybe I hadn’t included the song on an album because the storyline of the song was a male fantasy cliché, which might have felt somewhat sexist to me in 1996, though why I would have felt that way I couldn’t imagine: lonely man meets fabulous woman, takes a chance, fabulous woman dances with him.
*
After gorging on the superb hummus I went to the computer, looked in my long neglected Song Lyrics folder and found a Word document for Golden Light. However, it was a strange looking little file symbol, different than the others, and when I tried to open the file, a message appeared on the screen saying my computer and current writing software were unable to read the file because the file was ancient, a modern synonym for more than ten years old.
*
So I spent some time Googling how to read old Word files and learned that my current Word is considered antique and the newest Word app should be able to read the old file. However, to get the newest Word app I’ll need a new and more powerful computer and the new Word app for which I must pay an exorbitant monthly subscription fee. Can you say greedy amoral creepy jerks?
Then I thought I’ll just send this ancient Word document to my computer-wizard brother and he will make a new copy for me that is readable by my seven-year-old antique computer.
I started an email to my brother intending to attach the old Word document when I felt a pang of frustration and annoyance and a touch of anger, and decided to try to remember the lyrics without resorting to anything other than my memory.
*
To that end, I sat down at the kitchen table with a blank piece of paper and started writing out the song lyrics. Once again my memory hit a wall at There she was playin’ slide with her band and…
I continued humming the tune and went on to the next verse, and more and more lines arose from the archives of my memory, with several large gaps remaining.
I remembered She had big men at her elbows and rich gals buying her booze.
*
Time to add another log to the fire. Whilst adding the log, it occurred to me I could try to play the song and sing it. Surely that would jog my memory. I haven’t played the guitar for several months because I’ve been working on a new suite of piano tunes. Thus the guitar callouses on my chord-making fingers would be wimpy and my fingers would hurt when I played and my playing would be lousy because I’m out of practice. And I hadn’t played Golden Light in twenty years. Nevertheless, I got my guitar and my thumb pick and sat down to see if I could remember how to play and sing Golden Light.
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Interesting Tidbit: It turns out I do not, independently of my right thumb, know how to play the many songs I’ve written for the guitar. If I try to strum the chords without my thumb pick on, I can’t remember the chords or how to play any of my songs. With my thumb pick on, I can play the songs. I’m not kidding. My thumb is a genius.
I began to play and sing, and here it was, the song in her (or his or its) entirety. As I played, I thought This is a rock soul classic waiting to be covered by singers and bands and choirs for generations to come. Nor did the words or the story seem sexist to me. Was the song a fantasy? Yes. A fairy tale? Yes. Implausible and verging on silly? Perhaps.
*
Then it occurred to me that anyone who felt this song was sexist would probably not be someone I would invite over for hummus or cookies, though I would, of course honor his or her or any other pronoun’s opinion about my wonderful song.
*
Here are the lyrics to Golden Light. Maybe someday I will include the song on an album, though now I’m thinking of changing the title to Something Made Me. What do you think?
Late last Tuesday evening, after midnight one or two,
I was sunk in bitter loneliness, fighting those killing blues
Came a flash outside my window, a burst of golden light
Lifted me from my despair, launched me into the night.
Something made me go, something made me
Went on down to Jackie’s joint, thought I’d tip a few
There she was playin’ slide with her band
and there was nothing I could do
She had a wild mane of long long hair, luscious tiger’s eyes
She was everything I would ever want
if I only had the strength to try
She had big men at her elbows, she had rich gals buying her booze
She had pretty boys blowing kisses,
and oh my God she could play those blues
Something made me go, something made me
I moved past all her suitors and asked her for a dance
She looked at me for a long long time,
Then she put down her guitar and gave me my chance.
Something made me go, something made me
We held hands on the dance floor
Her band was burning bright
And I could tell by the way she moved
She was the maker of the golden light
Something made me go, something made me
fin
Hey Baby Todd’s guitar song on YouTube with Todd and Gwyneth