“The truth is not ashamed of appearing contrived.” — Isaac Bashevis Singer
As recently reported, Marcia and I are getting more airplay for our music on KVRF, a radio station in Palmer, Alaska, than we’ve had anywhere else in these United States, and our song getting the most play recently is “Goody’s Song” with lyrics based on a poem by my grandmother.
In 1979 I turned thirty, moved to Sacramento, bought a fixer upper, my novel Inside Moves was being made into a motion picture, and my second novel Forgotten Impulses was about to be published. In the midst of this hoopla, my grandmother Gertrude, known to friends and family as Goody, sent me a poem she hoped I would turn into a song. I loved Goody, and she had just lost her husband, my grandfather Casey, so I said Yes.
Her verses rhymed, sort of, but were syllabically inconsistent from one line to the next, and she used several gigantic words that simply would not sing. Nevertheless, I made a few feeble attempts to set her poem to piano music, and then gave up.
“I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.” — Lucille Ball
Two months later, I got a call from my brother Steve who lived near Goody in Menlo Park. “So,” he began in his no-nonsense way, “how’s Goody’s song coming?”
“Er, uh, oh, yeah. Goody’s song. I’ve been so busy that…”
“She doesn’t have long to live,” said Steve, not buying my excuses. “It’s all she talks about. Write something. Soon.”
So I dug up Goody’s poem and spent an hour at the piano searching for chords and a melody to carry her heartfelt lines, gave up again, went for a walk, and had a revelation. The song was not a piano song, but a guitar song, a lament worthy of Tammy Wynette. The words would need to be simplified and the rhythm of the lines made consistent, but the gist of the poem would remain.
I returned home, got out my guitar, and taking liberties with the original poem came up with:
I made a terrible mistake when I left you.
But what can I do about it today?
Ran at the first sign of trouble,
Now you’re telling me to stay far away.
I was so lucky when I met you,
Now I just can’t seem to forget you.
Please take me back, help me find that loving track.
What was I thinking of
When I made so little of such a great love?
I was a terrible fool to have left you.
What can I do about it today?
I ran at the first sign of trouble,
Now you’re telling me to stay far away.
But I’ve learned my lessons,
Won’t you help me out of this mess I’m in?
Please take me back, help me find that loving track.
What was I thinking of
When I made so little of such a great love?
I ran and ran and ran and ran,
Now I want to run back to you.
A month later, after five takes in a recording studio with a drummer, guitarist and bass player, Steve and I went to Goody’s apartment to play her the song. But before we rolled the tape, Goody made a speech. Picture a diminutive eighty-year-old woman, four-foot-ten in high heels, with curly silver hair and a twinkle in her eyes. Born to orthodox Jews in Detroit in 1900, her father a cantor, her mother the breadwinner selling groceries from a little shop, Goody had always wanted a career in show business and never stopped believing that one day, somehow, she would be discovered and become a star.
“I have a premonition about this song,” she said solemnly. “Even before I hear it, I know it will be great.”
Because Goody was a fantastic joke teller, my brother and I thought she might be setting us up for a punch line, but not this time.
“This song is the fulfillment of my dream. The spirit of my father lives in this song. It will be a beacon of hope for generations to come.”
We played the recording and Goody wept as she listened, and we hoped she was crying because she liked it.
When the song ended, Goody proclaimed, “Now if we can just get this to Johnny Mathis, all our troubles will be over.”
“You know, Goody,” I said, glancing at my brother, “this is not really the kind of song Johnny Mathis tends to record.”
And without missing a beat, Goody said, “Well, then that other guy who’s always on Merv Griffin. Mac somebody.”
“Mac Davis?” prompted my brother.
“Yes,” said Goody. “Get it to him and all our troubles will be over.”
“My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.” — Woody Allen
Goody died six months later, having outlived Casey by a year. We tried and failed to get the song to Mac Davis and Bonnie Raitt and several other famous recording artists, but “Goody’s Song” became a staple in my repertoire and an audience favorite. And every time I sang the song and told the story of how it came to be written, someone would ask if I knew who it was Goody wanted to run back to, since she wrote the poem when she was in her late seventies.
I didn’t know the answer until thirty years later when Marcia and I recorded “Goody’s Song” for our album So Not Jazz, the version currently getting airplay in Palmer Alaska—Todd playing guitar and singing, Marcia enriching the song with her fabulous cello playing.
Goody wanted to run back to Goody—the Goody she was before she surrendered to the cultural imperatives of her generation, married, had kids, and suppressed her desire to be an actor and a singer.
(“Goody’s Song” is downloadable from iTunes and Amazon and CD Baby. You can purchase So Not Jazz from Todd Walton’s web site UnderTheTableBooks.com or from Marcia’s web site NavarroRiverMusic.com)
Be First to Comment