I looked for my love in a solitary place
In one woman's body, in one woman's face
I looked in the mirror, I looked in the skies
O love, when I need you, don't hide from my eyes
O my love, o my love, o love where are you now?
Sometimes you are ice, sometimes you are fire
Dare I approach you, dare I enquire?
As your mood rearranges the inner clock chimes
You count all the changes between dead and alive
O my love, o my love, o love where are you now?
I know I'm not strong, I know I'm not weak
This tongue that is burning is still pressed to the cheek
I'm not Don Quixote, I'm not Don Juan
I am that I am love, please Donne moi la main
O my love, o my love, o love where are you now?
I told you the truth, you mistook it for lies
This garden of Eden is riddled with flies
Open your arms love, welcome me home
Prepare me the calf, I will feast on the bone
O my love, o my love, o love where are you now?
She
was beautiful and unattached. I used every ruse I knew and failed time after
time. Eventually her patience surrendered to my resilience - or was it her
resilience to my patience? - and she gave me three months of her life, a dozen
songs, and a brief though almost painless dose of gonhorrhoea. It was only then
that I discovered that she had been unattached to nearly every man in the
village, a fact which alters absolutely nothing. I am not less grateful because
I was the last.
None of the above is true, but it makes for a much more amusing anecdote than the real story of the writing of this song, which involved no actual woman at all, no romantic inspiration of any kind in fact, just several hours on each of several days, stopped over a guitar and a notebook, wrestling with words, sounds, rhythms, cadences, until the resilience of the idea eventually yielded to my patience.
There are two completely different versions of this song as well, musically, not lyrically. For thirty years I played it to a slow fingerpick, making a ballad out of it; then it occurred to me to strum it, to rock it up a little bit. Emphasis on the little bit, but now that I've done it that way, the fingerpick version no longer works for me. Like several of the songs posted on this blogsite, it would benefit from some additional instruments.
You can find David Prashker at:
If
you would like to include "Chameleon" in your repertoire,
either for paid public performance or to record for commercial
purposes, or if you would like to re-use the recording attached to this
blog-page for commercial purposes, contact
argaman@theargamanpress.com.
Use of this song, and/or this recording, for
non-commercial purposes, is not simply permitted but invited.
Words and music by David Prashker
Copyright © 2014 David Prashker
All rights reserved
The Argaman Press
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