Prescient Selection?

I think I may have talked about this before, but I happened to be listening to a recording of Ten Years Gone just now (from May 21, 1977 in Houston), and it struck me again just what a dumb move it was for me to pick this track for Destini and I as "our song" when we were together. As she used to point out, the first song we ever really heard together was Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time." And when we got in my car, the CD player was on "Candy Store Rock" off Presence.

So really, picking this song and calling it 'ours' was kind of cheating anyway.

In my mind at the time though, it was perfect, since the lyrics are about meeting a love after a long period of time. This fit, because Des and I met up at JCC after not seeing each other for about 13 or 14 years. But as Robert Plant makes clear in numerous 'recordings of illegitimate origin' (i.e. 'bootlegs'), this song is about "the first time around" - the "first love." In other words, this song is about someone you meet up with again after a long absence, but not in the sense that I imagined when I played it for her on our six-month anniversary or any other time.

I'm going to leave it there, since I've thought about it much more than enough. It just makes me wonder sometimes if the whole thing was set up to fail from the beginning. I haven't really been thinking about her any more than normal, but songs of course are always pretty powerful ways to jog a memory that is already in pretty decent shape - perhaps too much for its own good.


Ten Years Gone

(Page/Plant)

Then as it was, then again it will be
An' though the course may change sometimes
Rivers always reach the sea

Blind stars of fortune, each have several rays
On the wings of maybe, down in birds of prey
Kind of makes me feel sometimes, didn't have to grow
But as the eagle leaves the nest, it's got so far to go

Changes fill my time, baby, that's alright with me
In the midst I think of you, and how it used to be

Did you ever really need somebody,
And really need 'em bad
Did you ever really want somebody, The best love you ever had?

Do you ever remember me, baby, did it feel so good
'Cause it was just the first time,
And you knew you would

Through the eyes an' I sparkle,
Senses growing keen
Taste your love along the way,
See your feathers preen
Kind of makes me feel sometimes,
Didn't have to grow

We are eagles of one nest, The nest is in our soul

Vixen in my dreams, with great surprise to me
Never thought I'd see your face the way it used to be

Oh darlin', oh darlin' I'm never gonna leave you.
I never gonna leave
Holdin' on, ten years gone
Ten years gone, holdin' on, ten years gone