Song Lyric Sunday: Richard Shindell

Born August 3, 1960

I cheered when I saw that he was born in August — because that’s the challenge for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday. This week the theme is to find a song that was written or performed by someone who was born in the month of August. It proved not to be an easy task.

Richard Shindell is an American folk singer. He wrote a response song to The Beatles’ song She’s Leaving Home. I’ll put both songs below. If you’re not familiar with The Beatles’ song, skip down and listen to that first. Without it, Shindell’s song, Bye Bye, may not make sense. Somewhere I remember reading that Shindell had written his song as a song-writing exercise, trying to imagine what life would have been like for the parents of the girl who left home and just left a note behind.

Ten years to the day her father’s in the garden
He’s kept it as it was the day she went away
On every life some rain must fall
It doesn’t mean we let the roses go

Ten years to the day her mother’s in the kitchen
She’s standing at the backdoor, “Come, love, have some tea.”
It took a bit of getting used to
Only setting out two places

I could bring her back to them
With a few strokes of this fountain pen
All’s forgiven, start again

I could put her in a taxi idling at the corner
Working up her nerve and wondering what she’ll say
Remembering how she left that morning
Recalling how they both were snoring

I could bring her back to them
With a few strokes of this fountain pen
All’s forgiven, start again

That man from the motor trade
Ran off with a meter maid

Roses, wild, have spilled into the alley
Backdoor off its hinges, the grass grown high
Ten years to the day and counting
That little note she wrote? That’s all she wrote

I could bring her back to them
With a few strokes of this fountain pen
All’s forgiven, start again

But I can’t bring her back to them
That’s not how this story ends
As is written so it ends
Bye-bye

---

Wednesday morning at five o’clock
As the day begins
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more

She goes down the stairs to the kitchen
Clutching her handkerchief
Quietly turning the backdoor key
Stepping outside, she is free

She, … (we gave her most of our lives)
Is leaving (sacrified most of our lives)
Home (we gave her everything money could buy)

Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown
Picks up the letter that’s lying there
Standing alone at the top of the stairs
She breaks down and cries to her husband
Daddy, our baby’s gone.
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly?
How could she do this to me?

She (we never thought of ourselves)
Is leaving (never a thought for ourselves)
Home (we struggled hard all our lives to get by)
She’s leaving home, after living alone, for so many years

Friday morning, at nine o’clock
She is far away
Waiting to keep the appointment she made
Greeting a man from the Motortrade

She (what did we do that was wrong)
Is Having (we didn’t know it was wrong)
Fun (fun is the one thing that money can’t buy)

Something inside, that was always denied,
for so many years, .
She’s leaving home

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Paul Mccartney / John Lennon
She’s Leaving Home lyrics © Sony/atv Tunes Llc, Mpl Communications Inc