I don’t generally post song lyrics, unless I’m interspersing them throughout an entry, but this song has been in my head all day, possibly because I rented Schindler’s List from NetFlix, and was watching the bonus features earlier today.

I Remember
I remember sky
It was blue as ink
Or at least I think
I remember sky.

I remember days,
Or at least I try.
But as years go by
They’re a sort of haze,
And the bluest ink
Isn’t really sky
And at times I think
I would gladly die
For a day of sky.

The lyrics are actually kind of circular and the song is really very simple. Every version I’ve ever heard of it, though, has been over-orchestrated. If I recorded it, I’d keep it simple. Piano, cello, vocal. (Cello because I am not a true soprano, and therefore violin would be too shrill.)

My first exposure to this song was in the very early 80’s, when Judy Collins recorded it, and Amnesty International used it as a sort of theme song for prisoners of conscious. It’s one of those songs that’s always been in the back of my head though, I think because the words are so carefully chosen, the imagery is there, and enhanced with onomatopoeic sounds… I especially like, “Crisp as paper…” Say it. You can hear paper being shuffled, leaves being scuffled.

It wasn’t until relatively recently (February? March?) when I bought a cd of a couple of really obscure Sondheim shows (The Frogs is one of them.) that I realized this song I grew up with was a Sondheim creation.

But then, once you read the lyrics, it couldn’t be anything OTHER than a Sondheim song, really.