Published October 18, 2024
The rainy season is almost here in the Pacific Northwest. I went out Sunday and took photos of trees against sunny skies, and then I saw this under my apartment window. It reminded me of a song from a long time ago.
Bring me a rose in the wintertime
when it’s hard to find
Bring me a rose in the wintertime
I’ve got roses on my mind
A rose is sweet most any time and yet
bring me a rose in the wintertime
It’s so easy to forget
Bring me a friend when I’m all alone
when it’s hard to find
Bring me a friend when I’m all alone
I’ve got friendship on my mind
A friend is sweet most any time and yet
bring me a friend when I’m all alone
It’s so easy to forget
There are other verses. Other wants. Other whens.
The version I first heard decades ago was by Carey Landry, who was a priest, songwriter and musician. He taught me and many others about liturgical music, and somewhere along the way, he played and recorded this song, and I liked it. I’m not having any luck finding it online, but it’s available on an album that can be, coincidentally, a little hard to find.
As I recall, his version ends each verse with a slightly different last line: “It’s so easy to forget.” There are a few other differences. Landry’s read on the song is a bit slower, which I also prefer. Some of the traditional versions are a bit too up-tempo for my tastes. Funny how that works. Funny how my brain works. As a guitarist, I would always play it more slowly, as he did. It just felt right to me, perhaps because that’s how I first heard it.
Landry left the priesthood years later. I walked away from a lot myself.
The first time I set foot in Vanderbilt University’s Memorial Gymnasium, “Wide Open Spaces” by The Chicks was blaring on the speakers. It sounded wonderful. But the next time I heard it, on the radio, it was faster than I remembered. To this day I can’t find a slower version, so my mind must have been playing tricks on me. The song was new to me, released a few months before. Even now I think it’s begging for a slower, more reflective pace, but that could be because I have much of the rest of my story in the rearview mirror.
Read the lyrics. Listen to the song. It was speaking to me. I was just slow to act.
It takes the shape of a place out west
But what it holds for her, she hasn’t yet guessed
Man, those acoustics in that place. I fell in love with that song in that moment, and I fell in love with that moment. We have a big anniversary coming up.
Bloom where you’re planted
Landry (with his wife, Carol Jean Kinghorn) had another song I remember, “Bloom Where You’re Planted.”
Bloom, bloom, bloom where you’re planted
You will find your way
Bloom, bloom, bloom where you’re planted
You will have your day
I mostly love that song and still hear it in my head, but sometimes I rail against the sentiment, seeing how it can keep people in bad situations when they should run, run, run to where they can truly bloom, bloom, bloom.
I’ve shared the cropped version of the photo and the original. The full photo shows wilting and blooming at the same time. I think it’s a good visual metaphor for the person whose apartment window is out of frame, just above the flower.
Some asked if I was sure it’s a rose. Listen, my ex-wife called it a rose. If she calls it a rose, it’s a rose, even if it has four wheels, weighs 2 tons and gets 20 miles to the gallon in the city. I learned that almost as long ago as when I first heard “Bring Me a Rose.”
One more song reference: “A Sense of Wonder” by Van Morrison.
It’s easy to describe the leaves in the autumn
And it’s oh so easy in the spring
But down through January and February, it’s a very different thing
Winter’s coming. Bring someone a rose, in whatever form possible. Even metaphorically. Maybe even just a leaf.