(San jose, ca -> dc) Kelly sunshine
My father wrote songs for me and my sisters when we were born. What has always amazed me is how spot on he seemed to be with the lyrics. I've often wondered if this was blind luck or if the songs themselves played a role in shaping our personalities. Not surprisingly, I have always loved my song and the story that went with it - how I was born at sunrise as the sun came streaming in.
For 38 years I have heard the song played the same way with the same piano solo and the same modulation after the chorus. Last week I decided that it was time for me to start playing it. I slowed it down and put it in 3/4 time and raised it a step. Fortunately by now I pretty much already knew the song, what with having it imbedded in my DNA and all.
I'm performing it this weekend for the first time. We'll see if I can do it without crying.
hipsters, take your cynicism and go home.
Kelly Sunshine
By Gary O'Brien Snook
Life is so new
Kelly Sunshine
you brought the sun to my eyes
I'd like to help you through tomorrow
help you through the sorrows and pain
On the day you came along
I knew infinity
now you're here
and your blue eyes smile
so good to have you here
Walk with the wind
Kelly Sunshine
let the clouds be your friend
rain will fall and the flowers grow
and you'll have love in your eyes
and you'll have peace in your heart
and you'll be free
kelly sunshine
Life can be good
Kelly Sunshine
to thine own self be true
find a way to be happy
find a way to be you
On the day you came along
I knew infinity
now you're here
and your blue eyes smile
so good to have you here
Walk with the wind
Kelly Sunshine
let the clouds be your friend
rain will fall
and the flowers grow
And you'll have love in your eyes
you'll have peace in your heart
and youll be free
kelly sunshine
posted by cherry blossom @ 9:08 AM
6 Comments:
Dear Kelly,
I've listened to your Dad play your song for years. I know I have at least two recorded versions of it. One played at a family reunion or in someone's home. The other, which Diane and I listened to last week, was recorded in Nashville years ago (thinking the '74-'75 timeframe). I too am amazed how insightful the songs were. If I had to guess, I'd say your Dad is a very insightful person. I'd have to think such a special song also helped to shape your confidence and self-image. I've always admired the special gift he gave you.
Love,
Patrick
i like your song :)
hi cousin! yes, he is insightful. i guess that's the third possibility - that he could just look in our little baby eyes and tell exactly how we were gonna turn out. :) well either way, i agree that this was a huge gift. something so simple, but with all of us girls our whole lives. stephanie, lady of peace and tranquility, and rebecca, who will always be a princess in his mind.
thanks for your thoughts, patrick.
I do think your father wrote another song called Kelly's Song. But it was for a wife of his. He had a wife that sang did'nt he? That was a pretty song as well.
Hi Kelly,
Have you heard of this guy at Santa Cruz, Dave Cope? Here's a Hofstadter article on him:
http://www.unc.edu/~mumukshu/gandhi/gandhi/hofstadter.htm
And here are some of the EMI pieces. As a person who feels music as so much a part of what defines them, I find it really challenging that a machine can be so moving.
http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/mp3page.htm
Makes you wonder - what is music anyway? Perhaps its just /our first reaction/ and the memory of that reaction/ that makes it special.
I've always thought music is just like Proust's little white cord ... that we can pull on to open a musty box of memories ...
When thought of like that, somehow it doesn't seem so worrying that a machine might be able to reconstruct such a chord/cord.
Adrian
Dear Kelly Sunshine,
Actually, I only know you as Kelly Sunshine. I've never met you except through your father's song, which I heard when I was a young girl in Dundee, Illinois at a piano bar/restaurant called the Village Squire. My father would take the family there whenever your father was in town and Kelly Sunshine was probably my Dad's favorite. I was feeling sentimental so I googled your father's name and this is what I found. I would so much like to get a recording of Kelly Sunshine, or Stephanie or Rebecca or The Music Plays On or Theme in Search of a Movie, but that is probably too much to hope for. But I do want to say that your father's music brought joy to my Dad's heart and many happy evenings for our family. I will NEVER forget his music. I have not recordings but I can hear it in my mind right now. What fun to have encountered the actual Kelly Sunshine in the internet. Peace, Jeanine Caughlin, Dundee, Illinois.
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