It's All In A Song

One of my great joys these days is picking out CD's for my ride to and from The Asylum.

I am rediscovering my CD collection.

Took Crossroads with me today. Crossroads is a 4 CD career celebration on Eric Clapton released in April of 1988. It includes his work with The Yardbirds, John Mayall's Blues Breakers, Cream, Blind Faith, Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, and Derek and the Dominoes, as well as his solo career.

Pretty good collection of music through that point in his career. Beautiful stuff.

I picked a CD at random so I wouldn't know what to expect.

I was tooling down the road in injured innocence when Wonderful Tonight played.

Smacked me in the gut.

My current situation has me curled up in the fetal position emotionally. I exist like a walnut with a hard outer shell shielding what is real inside.

Not much is getting through these days.

I have always loved Wonderful Tonight because it was written about Carol. Not literally, but it could have been. I always think of Carol when I hear it.

"It's late in the evening, she's wondering what clothes to wear, she puts on her make up and brushes her long blonde hair."

The long blonde hair is an easy connection but it goes much deeper than that.

"We go to a party and everyone turns to see, this beautiful lady, that's walking around with me, and then she asks me do you feel alright, and I say yes I feel wonderful tonight"

Cannot tell you how many times people have told me that Carol looks much younger than she is. I am jealous of this and planning a revenge.

In addition, Carol is incredibly considerate of me, always thinking of me and wondering and worrying about me, always recommending things to me she knows I'll be interested in. "Do you feel alright?"

"I feel wonderful because I see the love light in your eyes, and the wonder of it all is that you just don't realize how much I love you."

That's the kicker right there. Carol does not realize how much I love her. Because I careen around like a pinball from being loving and considerate to being shut down, cold, alone and aloof. My mental deficiencies require attention.

"It's time to go home now and I've got an aching head, so I give her the car keys and she helps me to bed, and then I tell her as I turn out the light, I say "My darling, you were wonderful tonight, oh my darling you were wonderful tonight."

Cannot tell you how many times we have left parties, me with "an aching head", Carol with the car keys in her hand. She never told me to go straight to hell, which she had every right to do. She got me home and to bed.

Unfortunately I have not been good enough with the "My darling you were wonderful tonight" stuff probably because I was in a hurry to pass out and commence to snoring.

The point of all this is that the song has always been meaningful to me because of Carol. When it caught me off guard today it opened me up like a flower. The walnut shell cracked and emotion enveloped me like a cocoon. I am not going to lie, I shed a few tears. Had trouble singing one of the verses.

Because my love for Carol burst up past my defenses and wrapped me in truth. I felt pure, intense, grateful love for this woman. As I always do with this song. I felt good. I felt so damn good.

Today my reaction was considerably more powerful than usual because of how shut down I have been.

That is a powerful love.

That is a powerful woman.

Thanks, babe.