I’m Glad We Spoke Last Night

This song rips my heart out every time.

I wrote it in early 1991, after hearing from my then girlfriend that she was leaving with a one way ticket to travel Europe to “find herself”.

It was a heady mix of happiness for her, a little fear in thinking about her safety, but a heavy dose of “woe is me”. I had thought we were settled. I had thought our joint participation in and love for journalism was going to enable us to weave stories together forever.

That came crashing down. I later remember, having returned from seeing her off at the airport, sitting in the darkened La Mama Theatre in Adelaide (god bless its soul), and sobbing more deeply than I had ever sobbed before. So much for that rehearsal. And, yes, I probably wailed, too.

This song really crystallised the sense of fatalism that I think I inherited in my genes. Despite the tears on the surface, a part of me expected things to crumble and so there was a certain inevitablility about it.

It probably is my simplest, most honest, and (for me) most loved song of that era. I just wish I didn’t have to endure that pain to extract the lyrical honey!

Interestingly, I just found a poem I wrote that day, the day after her leaving. I will sneak it in here. Not sure if the spacings will survive the web.

Lunch The First Day

Shhh Calm
quiet soft
sitting silently pondering …..
nothing
just gazing in to thin
air
Basement please down going down
alone
The spirit is willing but the body
is . . . peaceful drained
Only 546 days to go!

Some Original Scratchings From My Handwritten Archive Of Lyrics