Hello, Hooray!
Hello, hooray, let the songs begin, I’m ready.
—ROLF KEMPF, “Hello, Hooray”
THE title song for Who Knows Where the Time Goes was written by the great Sandy Denny, the lead singer for Fairport Convention, an English group that was coming on strong. I first heard Sandy sing “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” on a little tape player in David Anderle’s office at Elektra. She had a brilliantly clear soprano, and when she auditioned for the Fairport Convention, the leader of the group said, “It was a one-horse race really … she stood out like a clean glass in a sink full of dirty dishes.” I often weep when I hear the song, for this great singer died so young, when she was only thirty-one, after a fall down the stairs at a party in London on April 21, 1978.
Across the morning sky, all the birds are leaving
Ah, ow can they know it’s time for them to go?
Stephen’s sweet guitar work behind the title track pulls back the curtain on its tragic beauty, reminding me of what we’ve lost.
After Leonard Cohen challenged me to start writing my own material I visited Bruce Langhorne, the great guitarist with whom I had traveled the country and whose opinion I valued. I showed him my book of dreams and dark poems. He gave me a plan: go home and write five songs about a relationship—the beginning, the middle, two more, and then the end. I did just that, beginning with “Since You Asked.” The fourth song that I wrote was “My Father,” which I added to Who Knows Where the Time Goes. I love the descending line that Stephen played behind the opening chords, although to this day I still chuckle and shake my head over it, because when he first played it I said, “That is not right!” Stephen just smiled and said, “You’ll see, after a while, that it’s perfect!” The great Van Dyke Parks played piano on that recording, and he played like an angel. Two more cuts, “The Story of Isaac” and “Bird on a Wire,” were written by Leonard Cohen. I can seldom resist Leonard’s songs. Many of his most successful works—“Joan of Arc,” “Priests,” “Bernadette”—begin with familiar stories, which he elevates to the realm of poetry and theater. In “The Story of Isaac,” he uses vivid imagery and a soaring melody to add weight and depth to a scene from the Bible.
The door it opened slowly
And my father he came in,
I was nine years old.
Leonard never failed to satisfy my hunger for great musical narratives. The same was true of Bob Dylan, whose “Poor Immigrant” I also included in this album. Two Nashville greats, Buddy Emmons on pedal steel and James Burton on guitar, joined Stephen in what turned into a magical string trio.
The record also included “First Boy I Loved,” by the Incredible String Band, and “Hello, Hooray,” by Rolf Kempf. Rolf had sent a tape of this strange, mysterious song to David Anderle at Elektra, and I fell in love with it the moment I heard it. I included one traditional song, “Pretty Polly,” about the cold-blooded murder of a young woman, a classic song of the silver dagger variety, powerful and frightening. I have always been attracted to such songs because they speak to the appalling violence that has been perpetrated against women for so long.
Our record was coming together nicely, but it wasn’t quite done. I had to return east in late June to take Clark to camp and to do some concerts. I also had one task that I was dreading: I had to break the news to Michael Thomas that I was in love with someone else. It was an emotional scene and though Michael was hurt and angry, he was as good as could be expected. We spent a night of relatively low-drama tears and tenderness. He had been good for me; he was clever and funny and had a wonderful sense of humor and a way with words. Before I met Stephen, he and I had been very happy together, physically and emotionally.
But falling in love with Stephen was like riding the Cyclone roller coaster for the first time: the wind blew past your face and your hair was in your eyes and you could hardly breathe for the speed and the terror and the thrill. How could I explain Stephen? What was I thinking? I didn’t really know how to communicate what had happened to me, but I managed to tell Michael that he had to move out of my apartment and find a place of his own in New York.
“I always knew I hated L.A.,” Michael said on that painful night. “Now I know why.”
I RETURNED to L.A. as quickly as I could.
One evening, as Stephen and I were driving back from Malibu and the setting light streamed over our sunburned bodies through the windows of the Bentley, we started talking about the rest of the sessions and the progress we had made on Who Knows Where the Time Goes.
“I think we need one more song,” Stephen said. “What about ‘Someday Soon’?”
The song was perfect for me, a Colorado girl at heart, and as soon as he mentioned the title, Ian and Sylvia’s gorgeous creation came spilling out of me. I remembered all the lyrics, and we hit the freeway singing together in harmony. We kept on singing as we got to Stephen’s place, where we stripped and showered and rinsed off the sand, still singing!
The next day we recorded “Someday Soon.” Stephen’s playing on this song made my heart leap; the sound seemed to move through his fingers along the neck of the instrument and into the center of my being. He added touches to the guitar part that made it step into its own boots and Stetson and tell the romantic tale of a cowboy stealing the heart of a girl.
Ian and Sylvia Tyson, who wrote “Someday Soon,” were Canadians. In the early sixties I got to know them in Toronto and in New York, where they often sang. Sometimes I would spell them at clubs and festivals around the country, doing a set after theirs or opening for them on some stage.
I have always had a soft spot for Canadian writers. There is something expansive and yet intimate about their songs, broad as the northwestern plains and as comfortable as having a cup of coffee out on a pinewood porch with a friend. From Ed McCurdy to Gordon Lightfoot and Leonard Cohen, from Joni Mitchell to Ian and Sylvia Tyson, hearing their songs is hearing the truth. And, as the man says, “when you’ve heard the truth, the rest is just cheap whiskey.”
To this day, when I sing “Someday Soon,” it takes me back to Colorado, and I see the lean, clear-eyed cowboys in their Stetson hats at the ranches I worked at in the mountains. I hear the music of Hank Williams playing at the beer joints on Berthoud Pass where we danced, spinning the night away. The West and dreams of life on a ranch—riding a wild pony, galloping over the landscape—were still in my bones, and in my romantic imagination.
Now Stephen was my one and only cowboy. Loving him, singing with him, knowing that his sweet, solid guitar was there, supporting my voice, I felt like all my wishes were coming true.