Tell wistful WI

No, I'm not drunk. I am, however, hung over on this beautiful morning. It's sunny and my last dream before waking up was about the birds that are now chirping loudly. I know better than to drink cheap beer, but I did it anyway.

After much work-related delay, I finally completed moving to a new town. I decided to send out an email with my new contact info to everyone in my address book. Been a long time since I've done one of those "mass emails." My address book contains addresses of people with whom I haven't been in contact in a long time.

I received a number of responses, of course. Of particular note: messages from four women, all of whom I was in love with at some point, all gals from my feckless 20s, before I became a journalist. The news: they're married.

Ana, a delicate-featured Greek-American sylph from, of all places, Somerville, Mass. Her email had a photo and she still looks like a model. I knew her in college, when she was dating someone else. She worked at the old tobacconist shop on Mass Ave near Harvard Square. We used to eat grilled cheese sandwiches on Saturday mornings and sometimes sneaked over to Algiers for tea at night. We had a chaste affair, I guess you'd say. We held hands and passed folded-up notes. Later, when I moved away, we wrote letters. There was an intensity about life in her that I've never known in anyone else. She's married and lives in Providence, R.I.

Erin, a brunette version of Natalie Maines. She wasn't a musician, but had a beautiful singing voice that gave me chills. Coincidentally, she's also from Lubbock. Very much a Texan woman, highly passionate, prone to drama, full of energy. Almost a nymphomaniac. Not as brilliant as some women I've dated, but she seemed to have wife-like qualities. I knew that if she ever committed to me, she'd be the ultimate wife and mom. But it didn't work out. She's married and lives in Round Rock, Texas.

Becky, another metro Boston gal. I met her during my second tour of Boston, well after college. Plain face, biggest breasts and biggest heart imaginable. We met when we were both going through a rough time...working at the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem and not enjoying it. I guess the thing that I remember about most her is that she seemed crazily in love with me, more so than anyone before or since. I got a job in Latin America and moved away before anything between us could mature. She even came down and spent a week with me six months later, but it was kind of a bittersweet experience, as we both knew our bond just wasn't deep enough to sustain an international romance. She's married and lives in some town on Cape Cod.

Charlotte, a gentle Scots-Irish redhead from Alabama, with freckled skin like cinnamon powder on cream. A hot librarian without the glasses...very intellectual, always living in the realm of ideas. Unlike the above three, Charlotte and I never had anything romantic. I was crushed out on her and she wasn't into me that way and why (too old? likes sports too much?), I never could figure out. We met while we were both working at a bookstore in Austin. Despite the lack of sexual chemistry, we were always able to talk for hours at the drop of a hat. She was always dating some asshole that she was usually complaining about. I figured she was just one of those women with bad taste in men. She's married and lives in Bloomington, Ind.

So my question is, does anyone know a good "all my old loves are married and I'm still single" song? I have a semi-exhaustive knowledge of country music, so you'd think I'd know several. But at the moment, all I can come up with are "Peggy Sue Got Married" by Buddy Holly and "The Door Is Always Open" by Waylon Jennings. The former isn't very good musically and the latter's a little creepy. So someone, help me out with a good song here.

I'm going to go feed my hangover some huevos rancheros and coffee.

 

First, if you ever again refer to a Waylon song as creepy, I will ground you for the rest of your natural born days!

"Didn't We Shine" off Waylon's "Too Dumb For New York City, Too Ugly For LA" album is a good song for your mood. Also "He Stopped Loving Her Today" by George Jones, "He Ain't Even Cold Yet" by Gretchen Wilson (off her "All Jacked Up" album).

Just a couple to start with...

 

Can't help you there, Irish. Wish I could.
Advice I can give, however, is tune to the local country music radio station, and you should have a favorite in an hour or two.

 

I don't know, maybe "Drinkin' My Baby Goodbye" by Charlie Daniels?

 

I kept thinking about Keb' Mo' and "You Can Love Yourself"

My baby she wrote me a letter
She didn't call me on the phone
Five little words was all she wrote
See ya later I'm gone

She had no explanation
About why she had to go
Well I can't take a joke,
But I can take a hint
She don't love me no more

(Chorus
But if nobody loves you
And you feel like dust
On an empty shelf
Just remember
You can love yourself

My mother says
She loves me
But you know
She could be jivin' too
And everybody's always criticizing
Everything that I do

I work 9 to 5, do the best I can
Try to please the boss
I bought a big ol' house,
And a brand new car
And then he laid me off

(Chorus)

Everytime I meet a lady
I wanna try to get to know
Either I'm too small
Or she's too tall
She's rich and I'm po'
So I called my old friend
Hazel Mae
Asked her out for a little date
She said: “I'm married now
And I got three little kids,
Boy ya just a little too late“



And if nobody loves you
And you feel like dust
On an empty shelf
Just remember
You can love yourself

 

All my ex-es live in Texas, maybe? Does that fit?

 

OK, now I've got a crush on Charlotte, but, jeebus, Bloomington, Indiana?
That's sad.
My recommendation -- The Chieftains "Women of Ireland" (aka The Love Theme From Barry Lyndon.), and then Jackson Browne's "In The Shape of A Heart."
Either those or "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang."
Depends on how well the rancheros worked.

 

Great songs for your mood, as long as you aren't in any way suicidal:

Sunday Morning, Coming Down.

I Still Miss Someone

Good Hearted Woman

Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain

Jody and the Kid


By the time those are done, if you can get of the couch, you're cured.

 

The Trapeze Swinger, Iron and Wine

Best wistful song about lost love ever. I like the studio version a bit better, but here is the live version.

Please, remember me
Fondly
I heard from someone you're still pretty
And then
They went on to say
That the pearly gates
Had some eloquent graffiti
Like "We'll meet again"
And "Fuck the man"
And "Tell my mother not to worry"
And angels with their great
Handshakes
Were always done in such a hurry

 

Thanks, all, for the great suggestions. Anyone else, please chime in.

Zeke, I can't believe I didn't think about ol' Kris. My brain isn't worth much today. And Cash's "I Still Miss Someone" is in my library. That's an old, old song...might even be 19th century in origins; not sure.

Rosie, "The Door Is Always Open" is about wanting to have sex with someone else's wife! So it is creepy...but a damn good song, anyway. "Didn't We Shine" rings a bell, but I can't place it...maybe I'll get lucky and the record store that sells old vinyl will have "Too Dumb for New York, Too Ugly for LA"...worth getting just for the title. On the topic of country, "I'm a Memory" by Willie off of "Me and Paul" is a good one in this genre...a little sentimental, but there's a bit of a "you screwed up, lady" kind of message to it that I like.

Fenian, I'm just glad I was already pushing 30 when I met Charlotte. If I'd met her when I was in my early 20s and less stoic, I'm sure that my failure to get anything going with her would have made drisheen of my heart. As it was, my experience with her was more a mixture of delight and frustration than heartbreak. She's in Bloomington because she's in some super-specialized graduate program at IU...something to do with information systems and libraries. She's a very 21st-century hot librarian.

Double Down, I really dig Iron and Wine, although of course one has to be in a certain mood. That's a great song...melodramatic, but that's the point. I should have thought of "Endless Numbered Days" this morning:
There are things we can't recall, blind as night that finds us all
Winter tucks her children in, her fragile china dolls
But my hands remember hers, rolling 'round the shaded ferns
Naked arms, her secrets still like songs I'd never learned
There are names across the sea, only now I do believe
Sometimes, with the windows closed, she'll sit and think of me

Of course, if Miss Etta and I had been present to put a halt to any of these matrimonial travesties, I wouldn't have started this thread:

"STOP THE WEDDING!"

 

The greatest song of all time, by a million trillion miles.

 

Same Old Tears on a New Background... Garfunkel