The Song
There was a coffee shop in Jersey City called Holiday. I used to go there in the mornings with my girlfriend at the time. Only six months earlier, I had broken up with a woman I’d been with for several years. She’d dumped me. On my birthday. I later found out there was another guy. That’s the fortune cookie version. Of course, we had been living together for several years, so the breakup had the initial challenge of my finding a place to live in New York. I wandered from couch to couch over the summer and landed that fall.
I had spent most of that time going out on dates, but those were mainly to keep from being lonely. The thought of actually seeing someone regularly was not on my radar. I had begun corresponding with Christie (not her real name), a few months before we met. It had started like all online correspondence does. Kinda flirty, and witty. But then she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she was scared. Having survived cancer myself, I knew how I could help, so I did. It was until a week before Christmas that we actually met- on a cold and rainy night. So the song is true.
I wanted to capture what that moment was like for both of us. It didn’t last that long. About a month, but it was like a vacation from six months of beating myself up and doubting my self-worth. For her, she had had her surgery and the prognosis was good. So we were thrilled to be alive and spend that time together.
Unfortunately, her father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer within a month of our seeing each other, which ultimately meant her leaving New York. Our relationship lasted less than six months. I wasn’t about to move to Texas to be with her, and she felt she had to be with her father in his final days, and then help her mother in the aftermath. I certainly wanted to do the right thing, but whatever choice I made never seemed to be it.
The song was in my head for months, but it wasn’t until I had moved to Washington Heights that I was able to finish it. I wanted to keep the sense of joy that we had momentarily felt, but I was also able to add the perspective of the affair in its entirety.
The Recording
I started recording the song in Louisville many years later. I never played it for The Navigators. It wasn’t among the songs I’d presented to Bob Brockman as part of “The Heights”, though it was written at the same time. I never felt like the song worked. Probably because it was too long. After cutting the song in half, it worked for me. I put it together quickly in my studio one day, and presented it to Colin Brown, and we recorded drums at CB Sounds. By the time I’d put the harmonies on the song, I found myself wishing I had polished it up sooner.