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Didn't I Know All Along

from To Sing an Anthem by David Clemmer

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Bonnie Rose Smith, my grandmother, had stories to fill several volumes. One of those stories was the time she was listening to the country station—Marty Robbins, Eddy Arnold, that era—and decided that she could write a country song too. So, being the incredibly intelligent and talented woman she was, she sat down and wrote a song about her first husband, before my grandfather. She gave the lyrics to her friends, who wrote music to it and recorded it on a tape machine. When Grandma brought the tape to someone in the business (I forget if it was a radio guy or a record guy), the guy said of course he'd love to play it on the radio / release it on record / whichever end of the business it was. As long as she'd sleep with him.

Grandma picked up the tape, stood up from the desk, said, 'No thank you,' and walked out. And the song faded to memory and a cassette tape, which she mailed to me in 2005.

I wrote down the lyrics for posterity, but by the time I got the idea to cover the song a couple years later, I didn't have a cassette player. So I decided to arrange a new version of it. And yeah, I gender-swapped the pronouns; when I recorded the first version in 2007, I was facing a similar situation. In a way, playing this song helped me get over it, as those old country songs are supposed to do.

So thank you, Grandma. Rest in peace, and I love you heaps.

lyrics

I recall the first time that I met you.
You'd just lost the greatest love you'd ever known.
You told me how you'd lie awake each evening
and wait for him to call you on the phone.

You told me how you packed up your belongings,
and he told you that he wanted you to go,
and how you walked the darkened streets for hours
just hoping that it really wasn't so.

(chorus)
Should I be surprised that you're gone?
Didn't I know all along,
I was only filling in
until he'd take you back again.

I watched your face each time you chanced to meet him
and saw the longing growing in your eyes.
I waited for the words each time I held you.
Tell me I was more than second prize.

Once he let you know he might still love you,
I knew that you would soon be leaving me.
No matter what I did to make you happy,
what you wanted most of all was to be free.

(chorus)

credits

from To Sing an Anthem, released May 14, 2015
Words by my grandmother, Bonnie Rose Smith
Music arr. by DC

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David Clemmer Portland, Oregon

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