WARNING: PG-rated M/M angsting. Follows "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?", "The Beat of a Different Drum", "On My Own", "Blue Moon," "Living in the Real World," "Clutching at a Dream," "Libera Me," any and all versions of "Last Night of the World," and "What I Did for Love." (I know, I know... So I'm still listing them, so sue me. ;-)
Well, unless I hear better, (and no, as amusing as they were to read, "Angst: The Musical" and "Angsting to the Oldies" ain't gonna do it ;-))) I guess "Song Cycle" it is.
"Angel of the Morning" is by Chip Taylor (or so I am told). Per several people who responded to my original posting, the version I probably learned was the remake by Juice Newton. Mrs. Fish gets the "Name That Tune" Gold Star of the Week for pinning the original artist as Merilee Rush.
<Yup, that's it. See when they come close together I get most of the blithering out of my system the first time... see?>
DISCLAIMER: Not mine-- (Goddess, I wish! ;-) No offense or trespass intended and no profit made, I assure you.
There'll be no strings to bind your hands,
Not if my love can't bind your heart.
... And I wake up alone.
Alone and cold and cursing God or fate or life or whatever decreed that the most perfect thing I'd ever found simply could not be.
Your things are gone as though you'd never been here. I mean, it's not like there was that much to take. You'd barely arrived-- it couldn't have been that hard to leave.
And there's no need to take a stand
For it was I who chose to start.
I could almost tell myself that I'd dreamed the whole thing, your return, the love in your eyes, the feel of your body, the peace in my soul... if it weren't for waking up in your lousy excuse for a bed, for the neatly-folded stack of my clothes on the chair... for the smell of you on my skin.
I don't blame you for disappearing. I can't go so far as to say I'm glad, but what would have happened if you'd stayed until morning? We're both grown-ups, Benny. We can both see that, even though everything has changed between us, nothing has changed for you. What would it have helped to say it?
I see no need to take me home;
I'm old enough to face the dawn.
I can just see you now: you, who can hardly manage to speak about feelings in the abstract, trying to find the words to tell me that you just can't throw your entire life away, not even for me? I know, Benny, love. I already know. There's no need to put either of us through the hell of saying it.
Just call me angel of the morning, angel.
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.
And I'm not sure I could have held myself together anyway, Benny. Much as I understand, much as I would never want you to do something like that, I'm afraid that I wouldn't be able to let you go. That I would fight the inevitable... and in doing so I might hurt you terribly. I don't want to see any more pain in your eyes than I already have.
Just call me angel of the morning, angel,
Then slowly turn away from me.
And more than anything I would never want you to stay out of guilt or pity or some horribly-misplaced sense of 'duty'. It would destroy me to think you were staying with me on principle-- the way you accept those asinine assignments from Thatcher without a murmur....
Instead we have last night, captured in time like a dream, a miracle. A precious piece of my soul that no one will ever be able to take from me.
Maybe the sun's light will be dim
And it won't matter anyhow.
And life will go on.
There will still be criminals to catch and paperwork to do and sunrises and sunsets and if none of it means anything anymore it will still be there... something to fill the time with.
If morning's echo says we've sinned,
Well it was what I wanted now.
I should go to confession now. Ease Ma's mind if she does suspect.
I realize I'm laughing by the harsh echoes in the empty room. Since it's over, since there's no more chance.... If I go now and confess, do penance, receive absolution for this night, I can still save my soul. I can be right back in line waiting for heaven just as Ma always wanted.
Yeah right. What soul?
It seems so pointless, so silly to try to save something I no longer can even feel inside me. What do I care what happens after this anyway, Benny?
Besides, you confess a sin. And I cannot, will not, think of what we had as a sin... as anything less than the miracle it was.
And if we're victims of the night,
I won't be blinded by the light.
It was wrong, Benny, but only as much as it hurt you.
I was so selfish to demand that one night. It only made things worse, I know that. I can't say I regret doing it, or that I would change a thing, but I do regret making things harder for you. If there were any way to have made it easier....
Forgive me?
Just call me angel of the morning, angel.
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.
If anything, I should worry about you going to hell, and I would... if I could possibly convince myself that any sane God could do such a thing to someone with a soul as beautiful as yours.
Just call me angel of the morning, angel,
Then slowly turn away.
I won't beg you to stay with me
How can you live an entire lifetime in twenty-four hours, Benny? How can everything that will ever mean anything be compressed into a single day and night?
Through the tears,
All the days, all the years.
I felt like this when I lost Irene. But you were there for me then. I had lost the past but I still had the present, even some whisper of a future....
Now all I have is the past. Now I have to find a way to live the rest of my life on nothing but memories....
Baby, baby...
Just call me angel of the morning, angel.
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.
Just call me angel of the morning, angel,
Then slowly turn away from me.
<finis>