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This Only Day

from Histories by Michael C Kelly

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about

My father’s struggle with brain cancer and my mother-in-law’s battle with Alzheimer’s inspired this piece. The song draws on personal experience and imagines what anyone suffering from dementia might say to their principal caregiver if they were allowed a day of lucid, rational thinking.

The song title identifies this “day of lucid” thinking but also alludes to the stress suffered by those who get to see their ailing loved ones’ only’ on certain days.

On another note … the first line of the song was inspired by something my daughter Colleen once related. Her new babies were learning to speak at the time. They learned nouns and eventually filled their vocabularies with verbs, adverbs, etc., along with a set of grammar rules to better connect them to reality. This complex of nouns and supporting grammar can be likened to a road map, with the cities represented as nouns and the roads as the supporting grammar. At the other end of the life cycle, one notices how the cities begin to disappear, but oddly the roads stay. Their struggle to speak leaves their words void of syntax but infused with passion. This Only Day song pays tribute to the love embedded in that struggle.

It was a powerful and moving way of seeing dementia. Thank you, Colleen. I love you.

lyrics

Verse 1:
[G/D] My roadmap lost its [Am7] cities.
[G/D] My events gave up on [Am7] time.
[G/D] Most [Am7] new things I’m presented
[G/D] They don’t shine [Am7].

Verse 2:
There were people in my world.
I wonder where they are?
Their names I’ve long forgotten.
It’s my mind’s scar.

Chorus:
[D] I appreciate you being [Cmaj7] with me.
[D] I just wish I could [Cmaj7] stay.
[D] You make everything so [Cmaj7] easy
On this [F#dim7] day, this only [G/D] day

Verse 3:
Let’s walk out in the courtyard
Gee it’s nice to feel the air
I bless myself too often
Sitting in this chair

Bridge:
[Cmaj7] Take me to the mountains.
Won’t you [D] take me to the [Dsus4] sea?
[Cmaj7] Take me to a party.
Would you [D] like to dance with [Dsus4] me?
We’ll [Cmaj7] twirl and swirl above the clouds [D] right up to the [Dsus4] moon,
Or [Bm] until you take me by the hand and [Am7] tell me that it’s time to go back [G/D] home

© Michael C Kelly, 2017

I dedicate this song to Gail who strength allows her to see every day as an only day.

credits

from Histories, released March 3, 2015
Lyrics by Colleen Kelly and Michael Kelly.

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Michael C Kelly Greater Sudbury, Ontario

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