You Said
This is the song that got me started again in songwriting. I hadn't written anything for years, when I took a week off work as an experiment to just sit and write at the piano. I had a great time, and one of the tunes I came up with was this one. But it had no lyrics, and no matter how I wracked my brains I couldn't find anything I liked for it.
A few months later, I heard about a folk club called Rasputin's that had a long-standing open stage night (over 20 years). So I went along and sang one night. While I was there, I heard about a song-writing group called Writers' Bloc, which met every month at the Ottawa Folklore Centre. And they had an annual event call the Song-Along, in which they published four topics, and writers from the area would write a song on one of them and perform it at Rasputin's in a two-night mini-festival of new songs.
Seemed like an interesting idea, so I wrote down the topics - one of which was "you said". And by good fortune, these words fit the chorus of this tune. And as soon as I sang it I got this picture in my head of two people sitting together in a coffee shop, talking about breaking up their relationship after many struggles.
As otiginally written, the song was several verses longer - over six minutes - and I am not a great piano player. So I just performed it alone, without a second song, though two were expected. To my surprise, it went down very well. Chris White invited me to repeat it at the end of the night, and Lee Hayes and I tried co-writing as a result. It's an example of how big a part a little encouragement can play. And several people still like this song best of what I've done.
postscript:
In 2015, Yamaha announced a songwriting contest - yamaha keys to the junos (the Junos sare the English Canadian music awards). To enter, a video was needed of the writer playing the song on a keyboard. So I entered this - it can be seen here on youtube.
You Said
Words and Music © David Keeble, 1997, revised August 26 , 1998
White china cups, half cigarettes,
small round table stained with neglect,
Surrounded by questions with no reply.
Isn’t the answer obvious yet?
Familiar words in new disguise:
once more round the circle of failures and lies.
Then suddenly silent, we’ve been here before:
this is the door to our final goodbyes.
Then you said, "What if this is all that we get?"
Can we heal the fear that holds us here
And escape this prison of endless regret?"
And you said, "What if, this is all that we get?"
All of those chances we wouldn't take,
as if love were something a promise could break.
Dangers and blessings both passed us by,
along with the choices that we wouldn’t make.
So you said, "Let’s let go, just like we’ve barely begun.
Leave the past behind. One day we’ll find
of all chances, this was the one."
So you said, "Let’s take it, just like we’ve barely begun."
We have longed to be wise. All our hope, all our lives,
We’ve been searching for one true key to the door that anger denies.
And you said, "Try me. I know that we can be healed.
We have fought, we will, and yet I love you still.
No denying what we both feel.
And you said "Try me."
You said, "I love you,
Love’s the one thing that we know is real."