Karaoke night

The other night when Don was working late, I sat up in the study, opened up iTunes, and had my own little Karaoke night, all by myself. In my considerably younger days, from junior high all the way into my 30's, I enjoyed putting on my records and singing, dancing, and air-guitaring along, kinda like Tom Cruise made famous in Risky Business (though honestly, I almost never did it in just my underwear). I haven't done that in ages; now, I pretty much stick to singing-along in the car. But it was a warmish spring night, I was alone in the house, and I felt young again! So with thousands of songs available to me in my iTunes library at the click of a mouse, I sat there, played songs, and sang along.

Most of the songs were ones I knew well, but sometimes I went to the Net to find lyrics. About 90% of the lyrics I looked for, I found (they weren't always completely accurate, but close enough for my purposes). In fact, it was a shock to have two of my lyric searches come up empty. Well, one wasn't too surprising: a 1988 song by indie folksinger Hugh Blumenfeld called "Let Me Fall in Love Before the Spring Comes." Even his own website no longer seems to have working links to lyrics. It's a beautiful aching song (with literary references) about desperately wanting to be in love. Sadly, not even a video of the song seems to exist. So I decided to post the lyrics, straight from the original lyric sheet, so the next person to fall for this song can find the lyrics via Google:

LET ME FALL IN LOVE BEFORE THE SPRING COMES
Hugh Blumenfeld

There's a warm wind blowing from the South
and though it's dead of winter
something crazy's blooming
And the smell of it reminds me
of the smell on my body
of a woman that I knew
when I was too young to know
Let me fall in love before the spring comes.

Well, they used to say that April was a sweet month
but now we know that she is cruel
In the city she gives nothing
but a memory
of promises she made us
in wilder times and wilder places
where the city streets don't go
Let me fall in love before the spring comes

It's a fool's pearl that has no sorrow at its center
and it's fool's gold that breaks and does not bend
and the jeweled snows of winter
melt in the gutter
and the long lit nights of lazy sleeping
threaten to be over
and I have not abandoned hope
Abandon's what I fear, and abandon
seems to be just what I need

Let me fall in love before the spring comes
Let me fall in love before the spring comes
Let me fall in love before the warm comes
Let me fall in love before the spring comes



In the same spirit, here are the lyrics to another song that didn't show up on the Net, "Shine On Me" by the Wondermints. Plenty of hits for other Wondermints songs, including one called "Shine," but not for this wonderful chunk of 21st century bubblegum from their wonderful album Mind If We Make Love to You. So for my next Karaoke night, I can go to Google and know these lyrics will show up!:

SHINE ON ME -- Wondermints
(D. Sahanaja)

You are the one
You shine down from the stars
Outta this world
And I've just begun
To step inside your radiating light.

I can't believe that things that once dim
Now look bright
But I believe that you're for real

[Chorus:]
Shine the light, shine on me forever
Show me the colors that I never knew
Show me that it's true
I'll leave it up to you

Luminous child
You set my mind at ease
And blow it away
One little smile
Will give us all the good news from the sun

I love the way you do what's never been done
I love the way that you're for real

Shine the light, shine on me forever
Show me the summers that I never knew
Show me that it's true
I'll leave it up to you

I can't believe that things that once dim
Now look bright
But I can feel it, yes I feel it

Shine the light, shine on me forever
Show me the colors that I never knew
I believe in you

Shine the light, shine on me forever
Take me to places that I've never seen

Child of light, shine on me forever
Show me the summers that I never knew