jim croce - "time in a bottle" (from the classic hits lp, available for purchase here.)

my father used to tell me, when i'd refuse a request, that after he passed, i'd have to tell everyone, "i never sang for my father!"

"time in a bottle" was far & away the song my father most requested me to sing when i was a kid. i don't know why, but i just read on wikipedia that the song was written for croce's newborn son, so.

i don't know whether my father knew that; maybe the lyrics strike a chord for all fathers--i wouldn't know. it doesn't strike anything w/ me, except the old mystic chords of memory : i can't hear "time in a bottle" as music. i hear myself still singing it as a child; i remember it being used in a fragrance commercial when i was younger. that it was written down, likely as croce watched over his son, played on a guitar & turned into a record utterly eludes me still. the words & tune came to me straight from my own father's mouth; i merely memorized & recited, trying to do whatever small thing my own small self could do for my giant of a father.

i remember, again as v. young boy, lying in bed in my father's arms as i tried to get to sleep. for such an immense figure, he could be incredibly gentle. he'd whisper to me, asking me what i saw happening to me in the future. i wonder what he would have said had i told him exactly how it would all unfold; i wonder what he thinks of it all now.

oh, i know. he's still proud of me. i don't know the source of his pride--maybe that too is something only a father can understand.

happy father's day, dad.