Friday's Grief Song, 09.13.24
"Salt my wounds/chlorined my eyes/I'm a self destructive fool"
Happy Friday the 13th!! It’s a drizzly gray classic PNW morning here.
This week’s song is in honor of fall bidding many of us to say farewell (temporarily) to my favorite summer pastime- swimming!
I can’t share this song without talking about how this song came to me. Sharing it now is also a little hello and nod to an old gardening and writer friend of mine Steve Adams, from Lopez Island but originally from Mississippi (and as a fellow Southerner I’ve got a soft spot for any of us raised in the South who wind up in the PNW). Steve died several years back. We weren’t close at the time of his death, but he was very kind to me in a very hard time in my life years prior to him getting sick. He was one of the few living people I know who could recite poetry by memory. We’d be at a client’s place both tending to our various landscaping chores and we’d stop, have a brief chat about the weather or whatever things were weighing on our hearts and then, he’d spout off Emily Dickinson. He was younger than my father but still old enough to be my father even though he never had children of his own. It was he who told me about the McGarrigle sisters and recommended this song. He knew I would love it. And he wasn’t wrong. Thanks Steve- hope you’re sitting on a porch somewhere enjoying a strong cup of coffee waxing philosophical with your loved ones. I remember you well.
This week’s song is from 1975. Swimming Song by Kate and Anna McGarrigle. (Kate McGarrigle is the mother of singers/performers Rufus Wainwright and Martha Wainwright)
Listen here.
Enjoy!
Swimming Song
Kate and Anna McGarrigle
Written by: Loudon Wainwright
Album: Kate & Anna McGarrigle
1975
This summer I went swimming
This summer I might have drowned
But I held my breath and I kicked my feet
And I moved my arms around
Moved my arms around
This summer I swam in the ocean
And I swam in a swimming pool
Salt my wounds, chlorined my eyes
I'm a self destructive fool
I'm a self destructive fool
This summer I did the back stroke
And you know that that's not all
I did the breast stroke and the butterfly
And the old Australian crawl
The old Australian crawl
This summer I swam in a public place
And a reservoir to boot
At the latter I was informal
At the former I wore my suit
I wore my swimming suit, yeah
This summer I did swan dives
And jack knives for you all
And once when you weren't looking
I did a cannonball
Did a cannonball