Wherever I May Find Her

I didn’t own a CD player until I went off to university for the 1995-1996 academic year. I can still remember all the CDs I owned during that first year, when money was tight and music was a rare purchase.

Pink Floyd–The Wall

Simon and Garfunkel–The Definitive Collection

Lenny Kravitz–Circus

Moxy Fruvous–Bargainville

Chris de Burgh–Beautiful Dreams.

And that was it. I owned five CDs in 1995 and for most of 1996. Of those five, one was listened to once (Circus), one was won as part of some dorm scavenger hunt (Beautiful Dreams), and two were CD replacements of tapes I already owned (The Wall; Bargainville).

To put it another way, during my first year of owning a CD player, I only purchased, and listened to, one CD that had music on it I didn’t already know by heart. But by the end of the 1995-1996 academic year, I knew all of the songs on that CD by heart as well. That was the year I met Emily.

“What a dream I had

Pressed in organdy

Clothed in crinoline

Of smokey burgandy.

Softer than the rain.

I wandered empty streets down

Passed the shop displays.

I heard cathedral bells

Tripping down the alleyways

As I walked on.

And when you ran to me your

Cheeks flushed with the night

We walked on frosted fields

Of juniper and lamplight.

I held your hand.

And when I awoke

And felt you warm and near

I kissed your honey hair

With my grateful tears.

Oh I love you, girl.

I love you.”

~(“For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her”, The Definitive Simon and Garfunkel Track 6.