While I grew up in Atherton, California, I was born in Asheville, North Carolina, and sometimes the family would go on a summer trip back to Asheville to see all the relatives and people who had been lifetime friends of my parents. Those times going back there in Asheville were always among the best times of my life. I attempted to go back and live there as an adult a few times over the years, but that never worked out so well, there were just so many more opportunities in California, even though I loved Asheville so much.
During these summer trips to Asheville, we of course were invited to various summer parties, and when when we children became teenagers, our grandmothers would arrange dates for us from among the families that they knew.
During the last trip the family took back to Asheville, our maternal grandmother suggested that there was a very nice girl who lived not far from her house on the mountain, she knew the family well, and there was a boy in another family that she knew well that she thought my sister (the one closer to me in age) would like. My sister and I liked the idea of this blind date, even thought we both had romantic connections back at home. Going out with these two would be lots of fun.
We four decided to go on a picnic somewhere up on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is an iconic road that winds around through very beautiful scenic mountains. Remember picnics? In California they will arrest you if you have one currently.
The boy drove and the four of us really hit it off and we drove for about half an hour up the Parkway until we found a particularly awesome spot. He parked by the side of the road and we took all our picnic fixings down to a ledge that overlooked a glorious forested site that went far down the mountain and had an immense view to the dense mountains ahead. We dangled our feet out over the ledge and enjoyed our food and drink, my sister getting deep into conversation with the boy and me getting deep into conversation with the girl. As we sat there and ate and talked, a light mist was rising in the air, coming from all the trees down below (it's those mists that led to the name of the mountains, "The Great Smokies"). After a while, I noticed that the girl (I am sorry I cannot remember her name, she deserves to be commemorated) had drops of dew, glistening like little diamonds, decorating the tips of her eyelashes. It was all I could do to not kiss her. It was really one of the most romantic sights I have ever seen. She was like a princess, and coming from an elegant southern culture like Asheville, she, and the boy, too, were so nice and so thoughtful, it was a privilege to have had the chance to go out with them.
One of the conversations we had at the picnic was music, and we found that it seemed that the Californians and the "TarHeels" had different tastes...those in North Carolina liked country music. The girl mentioned the name of several artists, but I wasn't familiar with any of them.
A few days after our picnic, the girl called me at my grandmother's house and asked me if I would like to walk over to her house and listen to records with her. She wanted me to hear here newest and currently most favorite album. I thought that was a good idea, checked it out with my mother who said to go have fun, and so I walked over there. The record album she had was Laura Nyro's "The First Songs". I honestly had never heard of Laura Nyro, but I as the music played, I was surprised to see that I had already heard and liked some of the songs that had been sung by other singers. Songs such as "Wedding Bells Blues" and "Stoney End" were very familiar to me, but I hadn't heard of Laura Nyro. The girls said, "this is the person who wrote all the songs."
Was this country music? Well, no...it seems that our musical tastes weren't all that different after all!
This was definitely music that I already liked and I loved this whole album that my friend played for me, while she was flabbergasted that I had never heard of Laura Nyro before! I think that the story with Laura Nyro was that she had been busy writing all these songs that other artists were singing, but was too shy to put herself forward directly. Or maybe it was just an example of how step by step recording artists grow their fame. Later on in this series, I will present another songwriter whom I had come to really like immensely, but whose music was recorded by others until he finally came out with an album singing his own songs, which for me is one of my all-time greatest albums.
I can't listen Laura Nyro's album without remembering how it was introduced me and I will forever remember the image of diamond dew decorating the eyelashes of that very sweet girl in North Carolina as we sat in the rising mist on the edge of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I really regret losing touch with her and not even remembering her name.
While the whole album is good, this song here has for me the deepest impact. So real, so heartfelt, so true, a genuine human having the caring to pull back in a transgression...and we all know transgressions, how did we handle them? Those final lines get me every time, "And when I saw you crying, I cried too."
Me, too.
I think moistened eyelashes is the appropriate response here.
17. Song name: I Never Meant To Hurt You
Artist: Laura Nyro
Songwriter: Laura Nyro
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