I was going to use this song in yesterday’s blog post.

It was my daughter’s eighteenth birthday…and I remembered the line in the song that said “and live like a flower”.

What could be more fitting than that for my little girl?  “Live like a flower…”  sounds pretty nice…and it reminded me of her.

Then I listened to the song again for the first time in 30 years.

IT’S ALL ABOUT LONGING, DESIRE, AND SEXUAL AWAKENING !!!  IT’S ALL ABOUT AN ADULT REVISITING HOW THAT FELT TO FIRST HAVE THOSE STRONG FEELINGS.

IT’S ABOUT GUILTY FEELINGS!!!

NOT ON MY WATCH !!  NOT FOR MY DAUGHTER !!

No sex songs for my daughter’s birthday.

But, revisiting this song reminded me of why I thought it was a great song all those years ago.

Here’s the lyrics:

I’m home again in my old narrow bed
Where I grew tall and my feet hung over the end
The low beam room with the window looking out
On the soft summer garden
Where the boys grew in the trees

Here I grew guilty
And no one was at fault
Frightened by the power in every innocent thought
And the silent understanding passing down
From daughter to daughter
Let the boys grow in the trees

Do you go to them or do you let them come to you
Do you stand in back afraid that you’ll intrude
Deny yourself and hope someone will see
And live like a flower
While the boys grew in the trees

Last night I slept in sheets the colour of fire
Tonight I lie alone again and curse my own desires
Sentenced first to burn and then to freeze
And watch by the window
Where the boys grew in the trees

“Sentenced first to burn and then to freeze”…I love that line.

The thing about a lot of these songwriters is I think that we forget what fine craftsmen some of them are.

When we think of Dolly Parton, we think about breasts and amusement parks…and, wait a minute…wasn’t she in a bunch of movies, too?

When we think of Carly Simon, I think that sometimes we think of her marriage to James Taylor…or how she looks…or any thing that draws our attention away from the songwriting.

Jackson Browne wailed on Daryl Hannah…and wrote a bunch of great, sensitive, insightful songs, too.

Artists court fame.  There’s no great revelation in that thought…you have to have some level of fame to get paid.  We need to be recognized.  But I think the only way that your personal life doesn’t eventually take center stage is to remain anonymous.

Maybe the only thing that does is reduce the scale of the misdirection of attention.  Maybe then you only have a small circle of friends talking about how “you’re a crummy tipper”…and forgetting that you painted the only anonymous Sistine Chapel that will ever exist on this earth?  Same dance…only it’s a bathroom instead of a ballroom.

I really don’t know…but I do know that this is a beautiful song…that would have been innocently inappropriate for my little girl’s birthday.

Daddy needs to listen to the songs before he posts.