sing

there's nothing like hearing your stroke-disabled father, singing Nat King Cole's Mona Lisa, from what remains of his memory, live over a faulty internet line, from over 10,000 miles away.

i feel the crush in my mother's heart as she bravely encourages him to sing.

and i feel happy that he does get through the song.



here's the one song i always felt i could sing to him, although the lyrics may not always apply, and i definitely would not be able to do it justice:


The highlands and the lowlands are the routes my father knows,
the holidays at Oban and the towns around Montrose,
but even as he sleeps, they're loading bombs into the hills,
and the waters in the lochs can run deep, but never still.

I've thought of having children, but I've gone and changed my mind.
It's hard enough to watch the news, let alone explain it to a child,
to cast your eye 'cross nature, over fields of rape and corn,
and tell him without flinching not to fear where he's been born.

Then someone sat me down last night, and I heard Caruso sing.
He's almost as good as Presley, and if I only do one thing,
I'll sing songs to my father, I'll sing songs to my child.
It's time to hold your loved ones while the chains are loose,
and the world runs wild.

But even as we speak, they're loading bombs onto a white train.
How can we afford to ever sleep, so sound again.

"The Night I Heard Caruso Sing"
Everything But the Girl


go and love your parents, before they pass on without you letting them know.