Light On Dark Water

Deal Hudson, shopping for headphones, introduces the clerk to classical music. It’s touching, and a good indicator of why this music will never die as long as there are people capable of playing it and listening to it.

From Terry Teachout, here’s a nice short appreciation of Johnny Mercer (actually from a longer piece which is not online). It was only ten or fifteen years ago (fairly recently for someone my age), and thanks to my old friend Robert, that I came to appreciate the classic American songwriters—Cole Porter et.al. Many of my favorite songs in that genre are those for which Mercer wrote the lyrics. Look at that list in Teachout’s piece; there are a lot of masterpieces there. Here’s one that knocks me out.

I admit that I’ve always had a soft spot for Andy Williams.

Here are the lyrics; a kind of poetry, indeed:

The days of wine and roses
laugh and run away
like a child at play
through a meadow land toward a closing door
a door marked “nevermore”
that wasn’t there before

The lonely night discloses
just a passing breeze
filled with memories
Of the golden smile that introduced me to
the days of wine and roses and you

The title phrase, as you may know, is from Ernest Dowson. Its dreamy fatalism was not Dowson’s last word on life and death; he died young, but not before entering the Catholic Church.

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