Rhymes and Reasons

Close on the heels of her highly successful album Tapestry, Carole King released Rhymes and Reasons in 1972.  At the time, I had just started my first teaching job in a small town in Pennsylvania, living by myself and trying to figure out if this was really all there was for me.  My life suddenly seemed pretty dismal.  I filled my empty house with music:  Fleetwood Mac's Bare Trees, Humble Pie's Smokin', Faces' A Nod Is as Good as a Wink to a Blind Horse, and The Allman Brothers' Eat a Peach among them.  And, of course, Rhymes and Reasons.

My mother called me early on the morning of November 30.  I can still view myself (as if from some other plane), the clunky black phone pressed to my ear, listening to my mother's controlled voice telling me that my father was dead.  I'd just seen him the week before when I'd gone home for Thanksgiving and he helped me pick out my new car, a 1973 red Mustang with a white interior.  This wasn't making sense to me.

There were phone calls to make, visits from my neighbor and one of my colleagues, a suitcase to pack (with clothes appropriate for a funeral), and frightening things to process.  For whatever reason, I decided not to start my drive home until the mail was delivered.  In hindsight, this was a good move, despite how silly it sounds.  Again, memory's camera recorded my 22-year-old self, sitting by the window watching for the mail car . . . and listening to Rhymes and Reasons.

The songs on that album will forever transport me back to that morning when I cried uncontrollably as my world seemed to fall apart.  In all honesty, I think it was less about losing my father and more about my first experience with Death's random willfulness.  By the time I got into my new red car and began the snowy drive back to New Jersey, I'd cried enough for awhile.

So why am I in love with this album today?  I revisit the album yearly, not on the anniversary of my father's death, but on the first of August.  The song, The First Day in August, always gets to me in a bittersweet way.

On the first day in August
I want to wake up by your side
After sleeping with you
On the last night in July
In the morning
We'll catch the sun rising
And we'll chase it from the mountains
To the bottom of the sea

When the day is over
And the night air comes to chill us
You'll build a fire
And we'll watch the flames dancing

You'll fall asleep
With your arm around my shoulder
And nothing will come between us
On the first night in August
The first day in August 

Go ahead, find it on YouTube.  You'll fall in love with it, too.  Although it seems there's not a rhyme or a reason for much of anything these days, there is always music and memory and maybe even love.