A #SaturdaySong Reprise

Do you use Facebook? If so, do you follow your favourite musicians on there? Unsurprisingly, for someone who posts a lot of music, I can answer ‘yes’ to both of those questions, and in some cases I am a member of that artist’s Facebook fan group page as well. If you haven’t tried this, they are pages where people share their love of the music: they are warm, welcoming places, and we can all use those, especially nowadays.

One of the groups to which I belong is the one for Mary Chapin Carpenter, which probably won’t come as a shock to anyone familiar with my posts, and the other evening someone shared a video for one of my favourites of hers. Watching it again I was transported back many years, as the song has always had a special meaning for me, and this reminded me that I had featured it in my earlier series of #SaturdaySongs. When I looked back, I was slightly taken aback to see that this was well over four years ago, and it struck me that many current readers won’t have seen this post or the series. I’ve never shared this one again, either, despite extensive trawling through my back catalogue, so I thought I’d do it now, as the story is important to me.

The post was originally published on 5 November 2016. Here it is, and I’ll return at the end to round things up:

#SaturdaySongs No.3 – Halley Came To Jackson

Week 3 of #SaturdaySongs and I’ve managed to keep it going this far! Having gone back to the 1970s and 1960s for my first two choices today’s song is much more modern. Well, the 1990s anyway. It is song with a very special, personal meaning for me, although it had not actually been released at the time it always makes me think of. Does that sound weird? Let me explain.

Today’s song is Halley Came To Jackson, by Mary Chapin Carpenter. This song is featured on MCC’s third album, Shooting Straight In The Dark, which was released in October 1990.  She is one of those artists who, during a career which has been thriving since her first album (Hometown Girl) in 1987, has been a conundrum for those who like to pigeonhole their music. Early associations with Nashville meant that she was seen as a country musician, and her albums have enjoyed much more success in the country charts than the mainstream ones, but if you look at Apple Music they seem to put her in a different category every time she releases a new album! To me, she is the writer of classy, intelligent lyrics, which are woven into beautifully crafted songs, all sung with her lovely warm voice. I had the great pleasure of seeing her play live several years ago, and the whole evening was an absolute delight: not only was the music fantastic, but her words between the songs were charming and witty. I’d have expected nothing less of her, to be honest. This is today’s song:

As you can tell from the lyrics, the song relates to the appearance of Halley’s Comet in 1910, and was inspired by the writings of a lady called Eudora Welty, who told a story like this about her own childhood in Jackson, Mississippi. MCC also turned the song into a book for children, and several of the pictures in the video are taken from that. Halley’s Comet is only visible from Earth every 75 or 76 years, so the next appearance was in 1986 – as indeed the song tells us. Realising that I would have to live to 108 to see its next scheduled appearance in 2061, I didn’t want to miss my chance in 1986, even though it was only going to be possible to see it at some unholy hour.

The due date was 9 February 1986, which was five weeks before my first daughter was born. Not wanting to wake my pregnant wife – who needed her sleep! – I stayed downstairs until the time we had been told was most likely for viewing, then crept upstairs into the second bedroom, hoping to see the Comet. This was the bedroom that we had prepared as the nursery, for when our baby came, and was already decorated as such, complete with cot and other baby stuff. Standing in the darkness by the window, I could look round at the room, once my eyes had adjusted, and I felt an enormous sense of excitement and nervous anticipation about the imminent change in our lives, as we brought a new little person into the world.

I stayed there for quite some time, enjoying the tranquillity and silence of the early hours, waiting patiently for the Comet to appear. Several times I saw something vaguely bright in the sky – were these going to be my moment? Sadly, no! These were, apparently, the worst conditions in 2,000 years for viewing Halley from Earth, as they were on opposite sides of the Sun, a mere 39 million miles apart. In those days we lived quite near Stansted Airport, so it was much more likely that what I could see were distant planes. Oh well, it was a nice try, and I did feel a sense of something spiritual taking place, a kind of pre-bonding with my unborn child.

Then, four years later, along came this song. It tells a beautiful little story, and I could relate to the father holding his baby to see the Comet, as that is what I would have been doing if birth date and viewing conditions had allowed. From that moment on, every time I hear this I’m instantly transported back to 9th February 1986 and to what for me was a magical night, even if the two stars (Halley and Katy) hadn’t made an appearance. This is one of my favourite MCC songs, and one of the best narrative songs I know, so I’ve listened to it a great many times. I relive that moment, and feel that special bond again, every time.

That unborn baby of mine is now 30, and had her first book published yesterday. How times change! I hope that by 2061 she will be a mother and there will be a grandchild of mine sharing the next viewing with her. Maybe I’ll be there too, who can tell? 🙂

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And this is me back again today. I’ve often thought that music is an essential part of our memories, and this song certainly holds that place in my heart. The original post prompted one of my favourite comments fields, too – the post and those comments can be found here if you’d like to see them. Life has, of course, moved on since then. In the intervening four and a half years, my daughter Katy has had three further publications (co-editor and contributor status) and has risen to the ranks of a Senior Lecturer at one of the better known UK universities. Prior to the pandemic she was a regular presenter at conferences, though that has all stopped for now: she has been working from home and providing all of her tuition via Zoom! Sometimes, however, she has been distracted by my granddaughter, who has joined the family since I wrote the post, and who will be three in June. By my reckoning, that will make her around 43 the next time Halley (hopefully) makes an appearance, so maybe she and her Mum will be sharing a moment like mine with a child or children of her own, as I pondered?

This song will be around seventy years old by then: I wonder if people will still be listening to it? I hope they will, as it is a perfect distillation into three minutes of the important things that make our lives so fulfilling: love, children and family. These will, I hope, remain important for us forever. For myself, I am happy to have a song that reminds me of this whenever I listen to it.