My Dear, Will You Return?

When, when, my Dear, will you return? Will you return to me, to me?
When, when, my Dear, will you return?
Come when the hills are gently lit against the sky.
Come when the soldiers kiss their lovers all goodbye.
Come in black, come in white.

Where, where my Dear, will you return? Will you return to me, to me?
Where, where, my Dear, will you return?
Come to the meadow where we walked among the grain.
Come to the window where we watched the moonlight wane.
Come through fog, come through rain.

How could all these heartfelt words fade without a single sigh?
The reason why I inward turn, the hope with which my spirit burns.
Will you return, my Love? Will you return?

Will you return?




I like the vagueness of this song.

I could write a story around it. I could describe in detail what exactly the situation is that made these feelings well up inside some fake character's chest. I could write a Dickensian novel and describe the small town he grew up in, the moment when he saw his Love for the first time, the unlikely circumstances that brought them together and then the unlikelier circumstances that ripped them apart so suddenly that all those words simply faded without even a sigh. Ok, I probably couldn't. Or if I did, it wouldn't be worth scratch. But I'd probably like to leave the situation open-ended even if I could fill in every detail of the history surrounding this moment.
I think some things are better this way. It's kind of nice just to sit back and speculate what this guy might have been going through when he wrote this song. One question haunts me more than any other. Could it be that the girl is dead?
Normally I despise repetitive lyrics, but this one seems okay to me, maybe because the music is so unique. Then there are enough details to build up the illusion of a complete story: walks through fields of grain and watching the moon from the windowsill. I've never before written a song that was so little substance, so much pure feeling.

But, as I've probably written before, I don't truly feel that I've written this tune. More like it was buried somewhere and I dug it up and dusted it off. But that digging was some hard work. I'm not meaning to say that I didn't have to work hard at the song, but the ultimate result is hardly something I can think of taking back down and changing it around again. Some chump said that art is never finished, only abandoned. That's a crock.

I invite you to invent your own story around this little ditty. Maybe someday I'll be brave enough to make my own concrete.

video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSKqYWP1vdM