Time Passages

Waking up with a song already playing in my head feels like a gift to me. I always wonder why this song? Why today? But regardless of the music, it often sparks a memory and that is the gift - remembering.

I grew up more attuned to the music from the 30's and 40's than current hits. That is until I discovered Rock and Roll and the radio stations that played the top forty hits. I was still listening to my favorite music from the 50's and 60's when my children became old enough to play their favorite songs. At first I thought most of the tunes were just so much noise, but after awhile I began appreciating some of their music, too. So I added tunes from the 70's and 80's to my favorites list. (I'm pretty lost after the 90's though.)

This morning's wake up song was Time Passages. I had to Google the artist because I did not remember who it was by.  It was not only sung by Al Stewart, it was sung and written by him. (And Peter White.) 

Alastair Stewart is a "Scottish singer/songwriter and folk-rock musician who rose to prominence as part of the British folk revival in the 1960's and 1970's. He developed a unique style of combining folk-rock songs with delicately woven tales of characters and events from history." (Per the internet.)

Time Passages first and last stanza lyrics:

It was late in December, the sky turned to snow
All round the day was going down slow
Night like a river beginning to flow
I felt the beat of my mind go
Drifting into time passages
Years go falling in the fading light
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

Well the picture is changing
Now you're part of a crowd
They're laughing at something
And the music's loud
A girl comes towards you
You once used to know
You reach out your hand
But you're all alone, in these
Time passages
I know you're in there, you're just out of sight
Time passages
Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight

The song was released in 1978, so it would have been when my eldest was in highschool. The album cover pictured seems halfway familiar, so maybe that is one he had. The cover title is Year of the Cat which is another Al Stewart song I remember and liked.

These are the first and last stanzas of Year of the Cat:

On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain
Don't bother asking for explanations
She'll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat

Well morning comes and you're still with her
And the bus and the tourists are gone
And you've thrown away your choice you've lost your ticket
So you have to stay on
But the drum-beat strains of the night remain
In the rhythm of the newborn day
You know sometime you're bound to leave her
But for now you're going to stay
In the year of the cat

Just as reading my "Tonight's Song" selections in my old diaries brings back memories, so does remembering some of the favorite songs of my children and where I was with them at that time in their lives.