Sunday, August 5, 2012

Maybe This Time

I wanted to do a modern version of this song because the only version I had of it was sung by someone else, a friend from Las Cruces. But it's very doubtful that I could sing anything like this any more -- if ever I could. And Sheree does such a good job on it. It was recorded in the ratty apartment I lived in at the time and I must have just bought a reel-to-reel that had sound-with-sound on it. As with most of the reel-to-reel tapes I have from the 60s and 70s, they haven't lost any quality at all, that I can hear.


Written: Rodeway Inn, Roswell NM 1973

Knees' band, which was known as Knees Calhoon in Roswell NM, was playing there on a month-long gig, when Diane, speaking about an erstwhile paramour, wistfully sighed, “Maybe this time he’ll write.” It sounded like a good song title so the next night Knees wrote this song for Diane to sing. It never worked out but in 1976 Sheree Williams, the first girl Knees met when he moved to Las Cruces, learned it and sang it with the Calhoon Brothers at the Las Cruces Inn every once in a while.

He’s gone, just like all the rest,
I’ve been more than twice blessed.
It’s that same ol sad song again
Only miles apart,
I guess I know that song by heart,
But maybe this time he’ll write.

What next, another wakened dream,
I have no mouth and I must scream.
He said someday we would meet again,
Things would be the same
A familiar face, a familiar name,
A friend to share the night.

And a letter won’t see me blue,
All it has to say is I’m thinking of you,
Just to reassure me that it was all true.

Uptown, lights are coming on,
People playing until dawn.
And there’s something that’s up for sale
For every appetite,
Sad songs written every night,
But maybe this time he’ll write,
Oh maybe this time he’ll write.
Mojo Hump