High Nigh Bonnie Hey!
If but she would but stay,
Much to her wouldst I say;
She's gone another for to lay.
High Nigh Bonnie Hey.
Dress myself in shades of grey.
Laugh and drink and sing and sway,
a fool I'll be from this day.
High Nigh Bonnie Hey.
If but she would but stay,
Much to her wouldst I say;
She's gone another for to lay.
High Nigh Bonnie Hey!
Laugh and sing my life away.
High Nigh Bonnie Hey,
no fairer fate for men of clay.
High Nigh Bonnie Hey.
If but she would but stay,
Much to her wouldst I say;
She's gone another for to lay.
Press shift and click on song title above to stay on this page and play melody in background from www.ReturnOfHildegard.com
The song came to me sometime after visiting my college girlfriend who was studying German culture in Munich for a year. When we returned to Boston I parted ways with her and wasn't sure why, I just felt I'd somehow left my heart in Germany. It had been a great relationship, so I cheerfully played with silly images of unrequited love to cut a deeper sense of loss. Goldfish refers to her blonde hair and the emotions across the sea; a blond goddess who sometimes looked like her began to visit me in dreams more frequently after this time. The song became a favorite for my 1987 album (old fashioned LPs, remember them?) called Powerless Spirit: Love & Death. The album was titled in memory of her telling me that Max Frisch called the split in the German psyche that gave rise to Nazi Germany a struggle between spiritless power and powerless spirit; if I had to choose I knew which side I was on. After we split and she graduated, my ex-girlfriend moved permanently to Germany to wed and settle there. I'm happy now if my song helps anyone who is jumping in and out of the feelings with which we humans play in our personal relationships as we fumble toward the deeper understanding of who we are and why we love.
news songs movies
