She's my only true love
She's all that I think of
Look here in my wallet, that's her.
She grew up on a farm there
There's a place on my arm where
I've written her name
Next to mine.
You see
I just can't live without her
And I'm her only boy
And she grew up outside McHenry
In Johnsburg, Illinois.
-- Tom Waits
There it is. The absolute perfect song. Clocking in at just over a minute and a half, "Johnsburg, Illinois" is everything a song needs to be. Simple but poignant lyrics, sparse piano, and an almost childlike perspective about love that is sorely missing in today's world. For Tom Waits, it was a song about his wife, Kathleen Brennan. For everyone else, it is, or should be, a small, evocative glimpse of the ideal way of which love is spoken.
Music is important to me, so much so that I treat exposing my children to great music as one of my most essential parental responsibilities. So I made sure that when Julietta and Sabrina were introduced to music a day or two after they were born, "Johnsburg, Illinois" was the first song they ever heard. Ever. In their whole, lovely, dear lives. They are six and five years old respectively, but Tom Waits is an artist that they are familiar with and view as one of the things they can count on being there.
I've heard this song hundreds of times now, and the original effect of the song remains. From the first tinkling of the piano beneath Tom Waits' grizzled fingers, I just kind of stretch out my neck like a turtle and soak it in. It never makes me tired, and it always gives me a measure of hope. I don't always remember that "Johnsburg, Illinois" is a palliative for whatever ails me, but all of us (myself included) should hang on to these little chunks of goodness in our lives.
UPDATE: I usually listen to the version of "Johnsburg, Illinois" that is on Big Time, Tom Waits' live album.
She's all that I think of
Look here in my wallet, that's her.
She grew up on a farm there
There's a place on my arm where
I've written her name
Next to mine.
You see
I just can't live without her
And I'm her only boy
And she grew up outside McHenry
In Johnsburg, Illinois.
-- Tom Waits
There it is. The absolute perfect song. Clocking in at just over a minute and a half, "Johnsburg, Illinois" is everything a song needs to be. Simple but poignant lyrics, sparse piano, and an almost childlike perspective about love that is sorely missing in today's world. For Tom Waits, it was a song about his wife, Kathleen Brennan. For everyone else, it is, or should be, a small, evocative glimpse of the ideal way of which love is spoken.
Music is important to me, so much so that I treat exposing my children to great music as one of my most essential parental responsibilities. So I made sure that when Julietta and Sabrina were introduced to music a day or two after they were born, "Johnsburg, Illinois" was the first song they ever heard. Ever. In their whole, lovely, dear lives. They are six and five years old respectively, but Tom Waits is an artist that they are familiar with and view as one of the things they can count on being there.
I've heard this song hundreds of times now, and the original effect of the song remains. From the first tinkling of the piano beneath Tom Waits' grizzled fingers, I just kind of stretch out my neck like a turtle and soak it in. It never makes me tired, and it always gives me a measure of hope. I don't always remember that "Johnsburg, Illinois" is a palliative for whatever ails me, but all of us (myself included) should hang on to these little chunks of goodness in our lives.
UPDATE: I usually listen to the version of "Johnsburg, Illinois" that is on Big Time, Tom Waits' live album.
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