THE SONGMany people have spent much of their lives hunting an article, thing, Idea or a will’o’the wisp. This hunt may carry on for years and produce nothing. I was lucky to find my will’o’the wisp after 45 years of searching.
During the 1960’s the Beatles, Rolling Stones and other rock bands were doing the music scene. My sister bought a 7-single record with the song “Night” the song never really hit the peak of the charts but tended to move away from rock and heavy metal etc. The music attached was kind of mournful and sad, with a ghostly undertone. That was about 1966/7. I did not know, until recently, who the artist was. The words, the music, and the song got stuck in my mind and inerasable
In 1969 I was staying Johannesburg and every Saturday We would walk the busy streets in search of a music shop. and ask if the shop had the record on its racks and the usual answer was no. Few people actually know the record exists. Years in, years out I would automatically drop my pace when passing a music shop. All in vain. Over the years I must have read thousands of CD songs in search of the “Night”. there are dozens of titles relating to “Night” One of the major problems is that I did not know who the artist was and thus the search was just so much more difficult, almost impossible.
So I took my problems to the internet. And after searching for months on end nothing came of it. ‘Night” remained in the darkness. Whenever I used to visit friends I would be on the look-out to see if they had the record, CD, or tape and 99% were unaware that the song even existed. The search continued even to the extent of going through the CD display at flea markets. Nothing. It was imperative that I identify the artist or give up the search altogether A few days ago, out of pure desperation and idleness, I googled the first line of the song. “ Its in the night when I get this lonesome feeling” and pressed Enter and Lo and behold: the song appeared complete with words and who was the artist? Simple Cliff Richard..
For a couple of minutes one does not quite understand what hit you, it comes almost as a shock and the mind becomes numb in disbelief. The effect is as if the mind had become used to the years of search and tends to carry on in that direction. Is this the real song or just another copy of the original, or what?. Strangest of all is that I had never forgotten the first line of the song.
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