Songwriting

Are you ready, boots? Start walking

Posted on by brucehhackett

The medical profession has been telling us for decades, even centuries, that daily walking is an excellent way to maintain our good health, particularly as we grow older and lead more sedentary lifestyles. It helps pretty much all of our internal systems — muscles, bones, lungs, cardiovascular — and does wonders for our soul and emotional well being too.

Some people jog, or go cycling, or even rollerblading. But more and more people these days are taking morning walks, or afternoon walks, or evening walks, or perhaps all three. Sometimes it’s just a quick stroll around the block to let the dog do his business, and other times it’s a five-mile power walk with a like-minded human companion. Some folks even participate in fundraising walkathons.

Popular songwriters have found walking to be a fertile subject. Below, I’ve selected 20 songs from the classic rock era that mention walking in the title, with another 17 “honorable mentions” as well, bringing the Spotify playlist to more than two hours, which should be a fine soundtrack for a nice long walk!

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“Walk Away,” The James Gang, 1971

Joe Walsh wrote this rock/funk tune for “Thirds,” his final studio album with The James Gang before going solo. The lyrics describe a relationship that’s on its last legs, in which the man doesn’t want it to end but the woman no longer appears interested: “Seems to me you don’t want to talk about it, /Seems to me you just turn your pretty head and walk away…” Although it stalled at #51 when released as a single, “Walk Away” has endured as a hard rock classic, and has been a mainstay in The Eagles’ concert setlist after Walsh joined that band.

“Walking on Broken Glass,” Annie Lennox, 1992

Like many of the songs she sang and co-wrote as part of The Eurythmics, this hit single from Lennox’s 1992 debut LP “Diva” takes a depressing topic like romantic abandonment and attaches it onto an irresistibly danceable beat. Critics called it “a gloriously intoxicating pop song that focuses on the emotional upheaval of a shattered relationship” that makes the narrator feel as if she’s walking on broken glass. It peaked at #14 in the US, #8 in her native UK and #1 in Canada.

“Walk of Life,” Dire Straits, 1985

Mark Knopfler had originally planned for this whimsical rocker to be merely a B-side for one of the intended singles from the Dire Straits LP “Brothers in Arms,” but the band’s manager persuaded Knopfler to include it on the album, and it ended up a popular single in its own right. It peaked at #7 in the US and at #2 in the UK, the group’s highest charting single there. The lyrics refer to a busker in the London subway, playing old rock and roll songs like “Be-Bop-a-Lula,” “What I’d Say” and “I Gotta Woman” in order to make a few bucks “and do the walk of life.”

“Walk Like an Egyptian,” The Bangles, 1986

In 1985, songwriter Liam Sternberg was on a ferry crossing the English Channel in choppy waters, and watched as passengers stepped carefully and moved their arms awkwardly while struggling to maintain their balance. He compared their movements to the depiction of human figures in ancient Egyptian tomb paintings and was inspired to write an uptempo tune with lyrics that mentioned more modern scenes in which people walked in similar fashion. David Kahne, who was producing The Bangles’ second LP “Different Light,” urged the group to record it, and it ended up an international #1 hit in 1986-1987.

“Walkin’ My Baby Back Home,” Nat King Cole, 1952

More than 100 artists have covered this charming ditty since the songwriting team of Fred Ahlert and Roy Turk wrote it way back in 1930, when four different singers put it on the “Hit Parade” the same year. Nat King Cole reached #8 on the US pop charts with his definitive rendition in 1952, and it became the title song of a 1953 film of the same name. Since then, everyone from Ella Fitzgerald and Bing Crosby to Judy Garland and Dean Martin wrapped their voices around it, as have rock-era artists like James Taylor, George Benson, Willie Nelson and Van Morrison.

“Walking on the Moon,” The Police, 1979

Sting recalled this song came into being when he was drunk one night in a Munich hotel room. “I was feeling nauseous, but I had a riff in my head, and got up to walk around the room, singing the nonsense words ‘Walking ’round the room,'” he said. “In the morning, I changed it to ‘Walking on the moon,’ which was how I remember feeling years earlier, walking home from my girlfriend’s house.” The reggae-based tune became The Police’s second #1 single in their native England, but it failed to chart in the US, although the album it came from, 1979’s “Regatta de Blanc,” reached #25 on US album charts.

“Walking in Memphis,” Marc Cohn, 1991

Cohn was a struggling Ohio songwriter in 1985 when he went to Memphis in search of inspiration. He visited the church where Al Green preached, and Elvis Presley’s Graceland mansion, and walked the streets and visited the blues and gospel nightspots of the downtown area. The song “Walking in Memphis” came pouring out upon his return home, and attracted enough attention to gain a record deal, and the song turned into not only his debut single, reaching #13 on US charts and #3 in Canada, but also garnered a Song of the Year Grammy nomination that earned Cohn the Best New Artist Grammy in 1991.

“Walk Away Renée,” The Left Banke, 1966

Keyboardist Michael Brown has said he was inspired to write this piece of baroque pop about a girl he had fallen for named Renée Fladen. He said it was an unrealized relationship because he was too timid to approach her, so he mythologized her instead. Brown’s band, The Left Banke, had a big #5 hit with “Walk Away Renée” in the summer of 1966, and a #15 follow-up single (also about the same girl) called “Pretty Ballerina” in early 1967 rescued the group from being “one-hit wonders.”

“I’m Walkin’,” Fats Domino, 1957

Domino, one of the original rock and roll pioneers out of New Orleans, had 20 hits on the R&B charts between 1949 and 1955 before he finally broke through on the pop charts with the iconic “Ain’t That a Shame.” He followed that with three more consecutive Top Ten hits — “Blueberry Hill,” “Blue Monday” and “I’m Walkin'” — in 1956 and early 1957. The latter, co-written by Domino and jazz great Dave Bartholomew, was covered by Ricky Nelson later the same year, reaching #17.

“Walk This Way,” Aerosmith, 1975

Guitarist Joe Perry and vocalist Steven Tyler, struggling for lyrics as they recorded this track for their “Toys in the Attic” LP, took a break and went to see the Mel Brooks comedy “Young Frankenstein,” in which Marty Feldman’s Igor character told Gene Wilder’s Dr. Frankenstein character to follow him as he limped off, saying “Walk this way.” They decided it would make a great title and lyric for the chorus, and the song ended up a Top Ten hit in 1977. Then in 1986, “Walk This Way” returned to the Top Ten in a collaboration with the rap group Run-D.M.C.

“Walk the Dinosaur,” Was (Not Was), 1989

In 1981, Don Fagenson and David Weiss formed a group they called Was (Not Was) based on Fagenson’s toddler son’s propensity to talk in contradictions. They struggled through the 1980s until their 1988 LP “What Up, Dog?” spawned the quirky #7 tune “Walk the Dinosaur,” which became a big music-video hit in 1989, utilizing scenes from the cartoon “Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur.” Randy Jacobs, one of the song’s cowriters, said that although the lyrics were about nuclear Armageddon, “it became a singalong dance anthem because of the Flintstones-like video that probably got played too much.”

“Walking the Dog,” Rufus Thomas, 1963

Thomas was a singer/songwriter/DJ/comedian in the 1940s and 1950s who made his first chart appearance on the US pop charts at age 46 when his bluesy tune “Walking the Dog” peaked at #10 in December 1963. The Rolling Stones recorded a cover version for their debut LP three months later. Soon enough, another dozen artists took their turns at it, including Johnny Rivers, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, the Everly Brothers, Aerosmith, Spirit and Roger Daltrey.

“Walk a Mile in My Shoes,” Joe South, 1968

South was a ubiquitous session guitarist in the 1960s, appearing on albums by Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel and Aretha Franklin. He was also a successful songwriter, writing hits like “Down in the Boondocks” for Billy Joe Royal, “Hush” for Deep Purple and “Rose Garden” for Lynn Anderson. When he penned more socially provocative songs, he became a recording artist in his own right, enjoying chart success with “Games People Play” as well as “Walk A Mile in My Shoes,” a plea for compassion and tolerance between those of different backgrounds.

“Walk on the Wild Side,” Lou Reed, 1973

Inspired by the 1956 Nelson Algren novel of the same name, Reed wrote “Walk on the Wild Side” for his second solo LP “Transformer,” and it became a surprise hit in the spring of 1973, reaching #16. Its lyrics pushed against boundaries for its time, touching on formerly taboo topics like male prostitution, transgender people and oral sex. “I always thought it would be kinda fun to introduce people to characters they maybe hadn’t met before, or hadn’t wanted to meet,” said Reed.

“Walk on By,” Dionne Warwick, 1964

The legendary songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David came up with this tearjerker classic for song stylist Dionne Warwick, one of many the duo wrote for her in the 1960s. It peaked at #6 on US pop charts. The lyrics urge the narrator’s former lover to just keep walking by if they’re about to encounter each other: “Make believe that you don’t see the tears, just let me grieve in private, /’Cause each time I see you, I break down and cry, so walk on by…” A few dozen artists have recorded the song since then, including Isaac Hayes, Gloria Gaynor, The Stranglers, Average White Band, Melissa Manchester and Cyndi Lauper.

“Walking Man,” James Taylor, 1974

Bruce Springsteen may have been “born to run,” but it seems as if Taylor was more the “born to walk” type. His catalog has a few delightfully uptempo tunes, but most of his songs, especially from his first four or five albums, are mellow, tuneful reflections on a more chill lifestyle. The title track from his 1974 LP “Walking Man” is a case in point, celebrating the man who strolls through life in contemplation: “The walking man walks, doesn’t know nothing at all, /Any other man stops and talks, but not the walking man, /Born to walk, walk on, walking man…”

“I Walk the Line,” Johnny Cash, 1957

Cash had approached Sam Phillips at Sun Records in the hopes of recording gospel songs, only to be told Phillips was more interested in “rockabilly” artists at that point, including Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins. Cash adapted the songs he was writing, speeding up the tempo of his ballads, and in 1957 he scored his first #1 hit on the country charts, “I Walk the Line,” which was also a #17 crossover hit on the pop charts. The song’s lyrics discuss resisting temptation, being accountable, and remaining faithful to his wife, though they would later divorce and he married June Carter in 1968, to whom he remained married until both died with five months of each other in 2003.

“Walking on Sunshine,” Katrina and The Waves, 1985

British guitarist/songwriter Kimberley New came up with this effervescent tune in the early ’80s as he was joining the band Katrina and the Waves. “I’d love to say ‘Walking on Sunshine’ relates to a significant event in my life, like walking out of my front door and seeing a comet or something,” he said, but it’s just a piece of simple fun, an optimistic song,” The group recorded it themselves in 1983, but after getting a record deal in 1985, they re-recorded it with a horn section for their Capitol Records debut, and it became a Top Ten hit in the US, the UK and Australia.

“Walk Between Raindrops,” Donald Fagen, 1982

Following Steely Dan’s decision to take a break after their seventh LP “Gaucho” in 1980, Fagen recorded the polished jazzy solo effort, “The Night Fly,” in 1982. Fagen had been inspired by jazz music of the ’40s and ’50s when he was growing up, and the songs he wrote for the album reflect that, none more so than the album’s closing track, “Walk Between Raindrops.” The lyrics describe a memorable romantic encounter in Miami during which a couple take an evening walk and dodge a rainstorm as they return to her apartment.

“These Boots Are Made For Walkin’,” Nancy Sinatra, 1966

Appearing in a 1963 comedy western, Frank Sinatra uttered the line, “They tell me them boots ain’t built for walkin’.”  Country singer-songwriter Lee Hazlewood composed this song around a modified version of the phrase, and intended to sing the song himself, but Sinatra, a friend of his, persuaded him to give it to his daughter Nancy to record.  “Coming from a guy, the words sound harsh and abusive, but it’s perfect for a young girl to sing,” he reasoned.  The song, interpreted as a girl serving notice to her boyfriend that she refused to be pushed around, struck a nerve, reaching #1 on US pop charts in the spring of 1966.

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Honorable mentions:

“The Walk,” Mayer Hawthorne, 2011; “Walking on the Sun,” Smashmouth, 1996; “Walk Like a Man,” The Four Seasons, 1963; “Walk on the Ocean,” Toad the Wet Sprocket, 1991; “Walking on a Thin Line,” Huey Lewis and The News, 1983; “Walk on the Water,” Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1968; “Walking Through Fire,” Mary Chapin Carpenter, 1992; “Walk in My Shadow,” Free, 1970; “Walk Right In,” Dr. Hook, 1977; “When You Walk in the Room,” Jackie DeShannon, 1963; “Walking in the Wind,” Traffic, 1974; “Walkin All Night,” Little Feat, 1973; “Walking Slow,” Jackson Browne, 1974; “Walkin’ and Talkin’,” The Marshall Tucker Band, 1975; “Walk Into Light,” Ian Anderson, 1983; “Walking in the Rain,” The Ronettes, 1963; “Walking On Air,” Stephen Bishop, 1989.

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You’re my sweet comic valentine

Posted on by brucehhackett

A lot of rock music lyrics tend to be about rebellion, sex, protest, fantasy, breakups, drugs and drinking, and sometimes just sheer nonsense.  But they’re also about friendship, peace, encouragement, hope and, yes, even true love. 

This week, my in-laws celebrated 65 years of marriage. Later this year, my wife and I will commemorate our 40th wedding anniversary. And this week, the lovebirds of the world will cuddle for another Valentines Day. 

All of these occasions, it seems to me, deserve a soundtrack of songs about romantic love… But what a job! There must be 10,000 love songs in the canon of popular music over the past century or so, and probably a thousand just from the classic rock era. I’ve sifted through the lists and have settled on 20 selections with lyrics that sing the praises of romance and affection. No doubt I’ve neglected one of your favorites, but I’m confident the songs found on the Spotify playlist at the end will do the trick.

Hey, you crazy kids — get a room!

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“Cupid,” Sam Cooke, 1961

The gifted crooner was also a fine songwriter, and his producers asked him to write a tune for a female singer they’d seen on a TV variety show, but once they heard Cooke sing it, they decided he should release it himself, and it reached #17 here and #7 in the UK in 1961.  Critics called it “the perfect pop song,” combining Latin, R&B, jazz and mainstream pop elements.  Sample lyrics:  “Cupid, draw back your bow, and let your arrow go straight to my lover’s heart for me, cupid, please hear my cry, and let your arrow fly straight to my lover’s heart for me…”

“I’m Stone in Love With You,” The Stylistics, 1972

Thom Bell was one of the most successful of the songwriters/producers responsible for the “Philadelphia Sound” artists in the Seventies (O’Jays, Spinners, Delfonics, Stylistics).  He specialized in love songs, and this beauty, sung in falsetto by lead vocalist Russell Thompkins, reached #10, one of five Bell-Stylistics collaborations to go Top Ten during their 1971-1974 heyday: “I’m just a man, an average man, doing everything the best I can, but if I could, I’d give the world to you, I would hold a meeting for the press to let them know, I did it all ’cause I’m stone in love with you…”

“Never My Love,” The Association, 1967

This timeless love song by composer brothers Donald and Richard Addrisi made three appearances in the Top 10 by three different artists between 1967 and 1974.  The Association’s version, an enormous #1 hit, came first, followed by The 5th Dimension’s #12 live rendition in 1971, and lastly, a #7 disco-ish version in 1974 by the European band Blue Swede.  Due in large part to these three separate successful recordings, “Never My Love” was named in 1999 by BMI as the second most played song on radio and TV in the 20th Century, behind The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” but ahead of The Beatles’ “Yesterday.”  Sample lyrics:  “You ask me if there’ll come a time when I grow tired of you, never my love, never my love, you wonder if this heart of mine will lose its desire for you, never my love, never my love…”

“You Make Loving Fun,” Fleetwood Mac, 1977

“Rumours,” one of the ten best-selling albums of the rock era, was full of tunes with lyrics about breakups, since two of Fleetwood Mac’s three songwriters (Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks) were in the midst of a stormy split during recording sessions. But Christine McVie, who had just divorced her husband John McVie, was having an affair with paramour Curry Grant and wrote about it in this effervescent love song, which reached #9 as the album’s fourth single: “Sweet wonderful you, you make me happy with the things you do, oh, can it be so, this feeling follows me wherever I go, you, you make loving fun, it’s all I want to do…”

“You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” Blood, Sweat & Tears, 1969

Motown singer Brenda Holloway wrote this love song with her sister Patrice, along with Motown songwriter-producer Frank Wilson and label mogul Berry Gordy.  Holloway managed to reach only #39 with her recording, but in 1969, the jazz-rock band Blood Sweat & Tears had an enormous #2 hit with it.  Sample lyrics:  “‘Cause you came and you took control, you touched my very soul, you always showed me that loving you is where it’s at, you’ve made me so very happy, I’m so glad you came into my life…”

“Just the Way You Are,” Billy Joel, 1977

When Joel heard the last line of the 1963 Four Seasons hit “Rag Doll, which went, “I love you just the way you are,” he decided it would make a great song title. He wrote it in 1976 as a love song to his first wife, Elizabeth Weber, but once they divorced, Joel didn’t sing it in concert for five years. In fact, he wasn’t sure it was a good fit with the other songs he’d written for his 1977 LP “The Stranger,” but it emerged as his first Top Ten hit, reaching #3 and becoming something of a cocktail lounge standard: “I said I love you, and that’s forever, and this I promise from the heart, /I couldn’t love you any better, I love you just the way you are…”

“The Best Is Yet to Come,” Frank Sinatra & Count Basie Orchestra, 1964

Ol’ Blue Eyes was known for many great romantic songs in the American songbook, and one of the better ones was this beauty, written in 1959 by Cy Coleman and lyricist Carolyn Leigh.  The songwriters first gave it to the young Tony Bennett, who recorded a decent rendition, but Sinatra’s 1964 recording backed by the Count Basie Orchestra remains the definitive version.  The lyrics tout newfound love while positively looking forward to even greater things:  “Out of the tree of life, I just picked me a plum, you came along and everything’s starting to hum, still, it’s a real good bet, the best is yet to come…”

“Happy Together,” The Turtles, 1967

Two guys named Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon, formerly in an obscure band called The Magicians, wrote “Happy Together” in 1966 and pitched it to more than a dozen artists before it was finally accepted and recorded by The Turtles, an LA-based band that had nine Top 20 hits between 1965 and 1969.  Their recording was #1 for three weeks in 1967. Sample lyrics:  “The only one for me is you, and you for me, so happy together, I can’t see me loving nobody but you for all my life, when you’re with me, baby, the skies will be blue for all my life…”

“Let’s Stay Together,” Al Green, 1972

Written and sung by Green, “Let’s Stay Together” emerged as one of the great R&B love songs of all time, holding on to the #1 spot for three weeks in late 1971/early 1972.  It also served as a comeback single for Tina Turner in 1983, reaching #26, jump-starting her solo career.  The lyrics weigh the choices of breaking up and making up, deciding the latter is preferrable:  “I, I’m so in love with you, whatever you want to do is all right with me, ’cause you make me feel so brand new, and I want to spend my life with you…”

“Only One,” James Taylor, 1985

Taylor has written plenty about love, though mostly wistful tunes about heartbreak.  Every so often, he finds himself in a good enough mood to write a happy love song like “Your Smiling Face,” or cover a familiar one like “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You).”  Also worthy of your attention is a little-known track from his 1985 LP “That’s Why I’m Here” called “Only One,” which features harmonies by Joni Mitchell:  “You are my only one, you are my only one, don’t be leaving me now, believe in me now, well, I’m telling you now, now you’re my only one…”

“I Will,” The Beatles, 1968

The celebrated White Album showed that The Beatles embraced, and could convincingly perform, a wide variety of musical genres:  blues, country-western, folk, dance-hall, avant-garde, you name it.  Their repertoire also had plenty of love songs, and although both Lennon and Harrison each wrote a few, it was usually McCartney who handled this assignment:  “P.S. I Love You,” “And I Love Her,” “Here, There and Everywhere”… and from The White Album, there’s the short-and-sweet “I Will”:   “Love you forever and forever, love you with all my heart, love you whenever we’re together, love you when we’re apart…”

“Crazy Love,” Van Morrison, 1970

Morrison is still touring and has released nearly 50 studio albums in his long career. In his early years, he was infatuated with poetic imagery (his “Astral Weeks” LP) and jazzy ballads like “Moondance” and “Tupelo Honey.”  On the “Moondance” LP, he offered a couple of timeless love songs, the best of which is “Crazy Love”:   “And when I’m returning from so far away, she gives me some sweet lovin’ to brighten up my day, yes it makes me righteous, yes it makes me feel whole, yes it makes me mellow down into my soul, she give me love, love, love, love, crazy love…”

“How Deep Is Your Love,” The Bee Gees, 1977

The Brothers Gibb were writing and recording songs for their next album when producer Robert Stigwood asked them to contribute songs for the soundtrack of a movie he was producing about the disco dance culture.  They offered three dance tracks — “More Than a Woman,” “Night Fever” and “Stayin’ Alive” — and this shimmering ballad, and they ended up as the anchor songs on the most successful movie soundtrack of all time, “Saturday Night Fever.”  All three Bee Gees have said this was their favorite from the LP:  “I believe in you, you know the door to my very soul, you’re the light in my deepest, darkest hour, you’re my savior when I fall, and you may not think I care for you, when you know down inside that I really do, and it’s me you need to show, how deep is your love…”

“For Once in My Life,” Stevie Wonder, 1968

Although this upbeat track became one of Stevie Wonder’s best loved among his early works, reaching #2 in 1968, it was actually recorded first by The Temptations as well as The Four Tops, but their versions went nowhere.  Wonder’s extraordinary harmonica solo, captured in his televised performance of the song on “The Ed Sullivan Show” that year, took “For Once in My Life” to another level:  “For once in my life, I have someone who needs me, someone I’ve needed so long, for once unafraid, I can go where life leads me, somehow I know I’ll be strong…”

“Can’t Help Falling in Love,” Elvis Presley, 1961

Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore, seasoned New York songwriters on their own, were commissioned to team up to create a song for Elvis in 1961.  Little did they know “Can’t Help Falling in Love” would be not only the best-selling song of 1962, but recorded by dozens of other artists in the ensuing years. It reached the top of the charts a second time three decades later in a reggae arrangement by British band UB40. Sample lyric:  “Like a river flows surely to the sea, darling, so it goes, some things were meant to be, take my hand, take my whole life too, for I can’t help falling in love with you…”

“Sweethearts Together,” The Rolling Stones, 1994

There are precious few songs in the voluminous catalog written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards that would qualify as romantic, but there are exceptions (“As Tears Go By,” “Wild Horses,” “Angie”).  Much later in their career arc, The Glimmer Twins surprised us by offering their prettiest ballad yet, “Sweethearts Together,” a tender ode to eternal love.  This one is a delightful break from their usual badass rock stance:  “Sweethearts together, we’ve only just begun, sweethearts together, so glad I found someone, sweethearts forever, two hearts together as one…”

“At Last,” Etta James, 1961

Mack Gordon and Harry Warren wrote this classic in 1941 for the Glenn Miller film “Orchestral Wives,” which flopped at the box office.  It languished for nearly 20 years before blues singer Etta James cut her smoldering rendition and made it the signature song of her impressive career.  I still hear “At Last” frequently at wedding receptions when the happy couple takes their first dance as husband and wife:   “I found a thrill to press my cheek to, a thrill that I had never known, you smiled, and then the spell was cast, and here we are in Heaven, for you are mine at last…”

“Fire at Midnight,” Jethro Tull, 1977

Regular readers of this blog know I will try to sneak in a Tull track whenever I can, and although the band isn’t exactly famous for love songs, Ian Anderson has written a few endearing tunes that qualify. On his back-to-nature LP “Songs From the Wood” in 1977, he concludes with this short piece that affectionately paints a picture of how much he enjoys coming home after a hard day and cuddling up with the woman he loves: “Kindled by the dying embers of another working day, /Go upstairs, take off your makeup, fold your clothes neatly away, /Me, I’ll sit and write this love song as I all too seldom do, /Build a little fire this midnight, it’s good to be back home with you…”

“Follow Me,” Mary Travers, 1970

At the rehearsal dinner before our wedding, this was the song I chose to sing to my wife-to-be. John Denver wrote it and recorded it in 1970 as an album track, and it caught the attention of Mary Travers as she was compiling songs for her solo debut following the breakup of Peter, Paul & Mary. It wasn’t a hit single, but I heard it on her “Mary” album in 1971 and learned to play it on guitar. I found it to be very touching, deftly capturing the idea of sharing your feelings and experiences with a lifetime partner: “Follow me where I go, what I do and who I know, make it part of you to be a part of me, /Follow me up and down, all the way and all around, take my hand and I will follow too…”

“Grow Old With Me,” Mary Chapin Carpenter, 1995

John Lennon was known mostly as an iconoclastic rocker, from his lusty rendition of “Twist and Shout” to the strident “Revolution” and much of his solo catalog, but wow, he could sure write some beautiful ballads as well — “In My Life,” “Julia,” “Imagine,” “Beautiful Boy,” to name just a few.  In the months before he was killed in 1980, he wrote several dozen songs, many of which, sadly, were recorded only in demo form.  The best of these is “Grow Old With Me,” which Lennon intended to be, in his words, “a new standard to be played at 50th anniversaries.”  Mary Chapin Carpenter offered a sublime cover version on the 1995 LP “Working Class Hero: A Tribute to John Lennon”: “Grow old along with me, two branches of one tree, face the setting sun, when the day is done, God bless our love, God bless our love, spending our lives together, man and wife together, world without end, world without end…”

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