First Kiss
Words by: Tim with much help from Frances. | Music by: Tim (1979).
Lyrics:
Fog is already coming in,
rolling off the sea,
creeping through the trees in the canyon,
making a misty fjord between high-ridge mountainsides.
Your kitchen has a view, up on a hill, still in the afternoon sun.
Are you watching as I drive down the twisting switchbacks toward town
after our coffee, homemade cookies, guitar, fiddle and fun,
exploring sound and common ground, laughing about the things we’ve done?
A couple miles and a cloud are now in our way,
yet I can see your face and hear you say,
“It’s time to go. You’re too slow. But come back tomorrow.”
Lips still tingling after our first kiss,
I thought I was too cold for feelings such as this.
You stoked your stove and me.
Tomorrow’s first real date will show if this was just a fluke or sweet fate.
Will we see in each other what we both saw today?
I’m in love with you, girl; there’s more than music to play.
If you love me too, even walls of fog won’t stand in our way.
Inception:
On a late spring afternoon in 1979 I joined my co-workers, Frances and Jan Luby, to walk along the nearby, seldom-used railroad tracks, to talk and toke and laugh in the great outdoors following our indoor hours on the job. Then, abruptly, Frances announced that she had to leave for a funeral. I realized that I was falling in love with her, and said, “Frances, you can’t just leave me like this!” She replied, “Yes I can,” and she did, but with a parting kiss that suggested more to come. Soon I was driving and parking in a big Safeway lot facing southwest, with journal and pen in hand, writing what I saw and felt: the marine layer rolling in, the fun that we could have. The music had been brewing for months as a finger picking etude of 14-note inversions, which I needed to master as automatic before a lyrical tune could soar over it in near-oblivion. The final touches turned on Frances’s addition of heart-line elements to the story that gave it wings.
Performance Credits:
Tim: sung voice and all instruments.
Frances: spoken voice.
Production Credits:
Recorded, mixed and mastered at the GallopAway Music studio in San Juan Bautista, CA.
Dedicated to Frances with whom that first kiss was shared.