CAR FULL OF GIRLS
Just before The Mister’s birthday in 2007 we got the sad news that his mum had died. The day of his birthday in April we were on a flight to Leicester for the funeral. It was a week where we felt very close to his sister and her husband, a closeness that would disappear in heartbreaking clouds of aftermath a few months later. But for that week The Mister thought he had the love of his sister.
What did not change was the love and support of friends in Leicester, all of them there for him during a topsy turvy week. Pete, one of The Mister’s closest, oldest friends came out one night and joined a group of us at Dos Hermanos on Queens Road. Both of us had our suspicions that all was not right with The Mister’s friend. Oh, he was entertaining, made us laugh and he was handsome as ever. But there was a subtext to his describing a recent purchase, the flash shoes he was wearing—very unlike our friend.
We saw him again on the night before we flew back to New York. The Leicester Big Band was playing their regular monthly gig in the village of Kirby Muxloe. Our old friend Stanley plays trumpet with them. The Greenhill Road gang came out and brought their sweet friend Chris, generously overlooking the fact that it wasn’t some hard driving southern blues band and that the audience, apart from us, would be silvered-haired and sedate. Older musical friends of The Mister’s showed up and then the Contessa arrived, driven by our friend Pete in the company Jaguar.
The Mister and I are on the same page with big band songs. We love ’em. It was fitting that we were there in Kirby Muxloe the same week we said good-bye to his mum. Jean loved the big band music and, in fact, the very last time we saw her and she and I giggled together like girls was at the very same gig. When the orchestra swooned into a beautiful retelling of Bette Midler’s classic, The Story of Love, I grabbed him for a turn in the space between the seated audience and the bar at the back and crooned those lovely lyrics as we danced:
As long as there’s the two of us,
We’ve got the world and all its charms.
And when the world is through with us,
We’ve got each other’s arms.
It was a grand night and just what the Mister needed. Heading back into Leicester, his old friend offered to take me and The Contessa and our friend Jaz for a spin in the Jaguar. We piled in like excited school girls and in the close darkness of the car we sang along with the radio.
On the flight home the next morning, I recounted the excitement of driving along winding dark country roads in such a flash car. Somehow we got the idea for a title, which is always the magic that eventually materializes into a song. “A Car Full Of Girls.” We didn’t know where to go with it and it sat untouched until our return to Leicester this past year for The Mister’s 50th birthday. In the meantime we had found out his old friend’s long term marriage had broken up and that Pete had the love of his life, in his life, now. One afternoon in Leicester, the Mister and I left Greenhill Road for a “walk and talk.” We roamed the streets of Clarendon Park with the digital recorder at the ready and talked out our ideas for the song. We flew home and finished it.
This is for Pete and his lovely Sue.
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He’s got a car full of girls
Heart full of loneliness
Car full of girls
Leaves him in a whirl
Blackbird Road
Flying down Blackbird Road
Surrounding years
Where have they gone
Dashboard glow
Letting the memories go
Saturday night will
Fall from love
He’s got a car full of girls
Heart full of loneliness
Car full of girls
Leaves him in a whirl
He’s got a car full of girls
Not his one and only-ness
Car full of girls
Fills his empty world
Momacre Hill
That’s where he found his thrill
Those empty miles
Where have they flown
Fancy car
Must be a jaguar
Joyriding
On the boulevard
He’s got a car full of girls
Heart full of loneliness
Car full of girls
Leaves him in a whirl
He’s got a car full of girls
Not his one and only-ness
Car full of girls
Fills his empty world
Gypsy Lane
He hears that old refrain
Saturday night
Always the same
Daylight’s gone
He’s got the headlights on
Back seat girls
They fill the night with song
He’s got a car full of girls
Heart full of loneliness
Car full of girls
Leaves him in a whirl
Stop on a dime
Turn on a penny
Looking for the one
When he’s got so many
He’s got a car full of girls
Heart full of loneliness
Car full of girls
Leaves him in a whirl
He’s got a car full of girls
Not his one and only-ness
Car full of girls
Fills his empty world
©fairalldanzmusic 2009
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