Loneliness

by

After The Holidays

Image by Robert Karkowski from Pixabay

Greetings during this time of short days and long nights in the northern hemisphere.

I hope you are warm and well as you read this blog post.

Right now in Massachusetts we are graced with a beautiful full moon shining down on our snow-less streets.

I first shared the song “After The Holidays” (in the player at the top of this page) three years ago in a blog post about the challenges of feeling lonely during the holiday season.

As you may remember — or perhaps you have blocked it out of your memory in order to be able to move on with your life — three years ago things were not going well in the USA.

Many hospitals were overwhelmed by COVID — with dead bodies being stored in refrigerated trailer trucks until funeral homes and crematoria could catch up with the demand for their services.

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

It was a very challenging winter holiday season.

And 2023 has brought new challenges — and tragedies — into our lives here on planet earth.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Wars continue to grind along, destroying human lives along with the lives of countless other beings caught in the cross fire. Pollution continues to seep into every ecosystem here on planet earth. Climate change continues to increase with catastrophic consequences.

My heart goes out to anyone who is feeling hopeless, who is feeling distraught, who is feeling alone, or who is feeling unloved during this holiday season.

And although I am fortunate to have a life partner + family + friends with whom I can gather during the holidays, I can vividly remember how heart-broken and grief-stricken I felt when the first big love of my life chose to end our relationship many decades ago…

Image by Scott Wynn

“After The Holidays” taps into those feelings of raw desperation.

It was written by John Meyer.

His friend Judy Garland performed it on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1968.

Mr. Meyer is still alive and living in New York City.

Earlier this month I tracked down an email address for him so that I could let him know I had released a version of his song.

And much to my (happy) surprise, he was kind enough to give it a listen.

Here is how he responded:

“Will, I’m impressed.

Image by Stephen C. Fischer

You’re note-perfect — good for you!

Others bend the melody to suit their often tasteless predilections.

And I like that you take your time with the song, investing it with real poignancy.

Thank you for sharing.

Merry Christmas!”

Needless to say, I am delighted (and relieved) that he responded so positively to how pianist Doug Hammer and I interpreted his song.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Image by Mariya from Pixabay

And I will gently point out that this is yet another winter holiday song written (or co-written) by Jewish composers/lyricists — joining a beloved list of favorites including “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Silver Bells,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Let It Snow,” and “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day.”

Here is a link to my version “After The Holidays“ in case you might like to stream it.

And as I have explained before, if you “like” one of my songs or add it to one of your playlists, that will improve the algorithmic sharing of my music.

Thank you to the John Meyer for writing such a moving song.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for playing so sensitively on my version of John’s song AND for being such a diligent engineer/producer.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Thank you to Stephen Fischer for his terrific graphic design work.

Thank you to the photographers at Pixabay — and to Scott Wynn — for their great images.

And thank YOU for reading. and listening to another one of my blog posts!

May your 2024 be full of peace and hope and determination…

by

Just Stay With Me…

It’s a gray day here in the Boston area.

Rain is forecast for Christmas Day, which will probably melt the snow that fell last week.

Lot of folks are curtailing their holiday plans and modifying — or outright cancelling — long-standing family traditions in response to the fact that hospitals around the USA are again overloaded with Covid-19 cases.

And the infection numbers just keep rising…partly due to all the traveling that folks did a few weeks ago during Thanksgiving.

And the refrigerated trailer trucks parked outside of hospitals continue to fill up with the bodies of folks who have died — with no friends or family members at their side — as a result of this public health tragedy.

This is sad on so many levels.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Even in the best of years, winter holidays can be a very difficult time for some of us.

I read a couple of blog posts by my fellow bloggers this morning while I was avoiding other tasks on my “to do” list.

Clare from North Suffolk in England shared a bit about the challenges her family is facing this year, especially those who already experience high levels of anxiety about life here on planet earth.

She writes: “The damage all this isolation and lock-down is doing to so many people, physically, mentally and financially is unimaginably great…”

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

Clare’s blog post reminded me of this song, written by John Meyer (in the audio player above).

I do not remember when I first heard “After The Holidays.”

Judy Garland performed it on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1968 — and many copies of that performance can be found on YouTube.

I am guessing that it was included on some sort of Judy Garland compilation CD — released long after her death in 1969 — which I ended up listening to…

Here is Judy in 1963, photographed by Richard Avedon.

The man who wrote the song, John Meyer, had an intense, three-month-long relationship with Judy when he was starting his career as a writer.

He chronicles it in a very vivid book he wrote called Heartbreaker.

I think his relationship with Judy ended when she got serious about another man, Mickey Deans.

Here she is with Mickey in London during their wedding on March 15, 1969.

Judy was living with Mickey in London when she died on June 22, 1969.

It is my understanding, after reading many books about Judy Garland, that she often did not like to be left alone.

Mel Torme — a wonderful singer who also co-wrote “The Christmas Song” — wrote a book about his time working on Judy’s TV series.

In it he talks about becoming a member of “The Dawn Patrol” — a select group of staff members who would take turns spending the night with Judy and reassuring her that her show was going well.

Loneliness is certainly something that most of us have experienced at one time or another.

And loneliness during the holidays can be particularly excruciating.

By a sweet coincidence, while I was avoiding things on my “to do” list, I also found a video on YouTube about two dogs, Taco (a chihuahua) and Merrill (a pit bull mix), who were dropped off at a shelter together and did NOT want to be seperated.

In hopes of finding someone who would be willing to adopt both of them, the people who worked at their shelter started sharing posts via social media about their special bond.

They ended up being adopted by a family who started a Facebook page about them, because so many other people wanted to know what had happened to them.

Hurrah for this one, small, canine happy ending!

I also would like for this blog post to have a happy musical ending.

So I am including links to several songs which pianist Doug Hammer and I have released this month to various musical platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music.

You can click here to listen to our version of “We Need A Little Christmas.”

You can click here to listen to our version of “Winter Wonderland.” 

You can click here to listen to our version of “The Christmas Song.”

You can click here to listen to our version of “Silver Bells” (which was featured in a recent blog post).

And you can click here to listen to our version of “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day.”

Thank you to Pixabay and Wikimedia Commons for the images in this blog post.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his gifts as a pianist as well as a recording engineer.

Thank you to John Meyer for his beautiful song and to Judy Garland for being the first person to breath life into it.

And thank you to YOU for reading and listening to another one of my blog posts!

May your holiday season be filled with comforting music and light.

ps: You are always welcome to visit my website, and you can find me on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music and other digital music platforms.