letting it all out
Mariah Carey was fantastic last night. She put on a great show, she only lip-synched two songs, and she looked wonderful. Her backup singers were extraordinary. Damien told me that Kelly Price got her start as a backup for Mariah. And even Mariah got her start as a backup singer. So I may have seen a star singer in the making last night.
She did a lot of flash-back music which threw me into a tail-spin of memories. As soon as I got home, I had to dig deep into my collection and pull out some tracks from my past that stood out. For better or for worse, I dug into my melancholy collection, and came across the song from Les Miserables called “On My Own”.
The character Eponine is hopelessly in love with a man who won’t ever be able to love her back. Although the original wasn’t written by them, the English version by Cameron Mackintosh and Herbert Kretzmer is poetic and bittersweet. My favorite performance is by a Japanese woman who spoke very little English at the time of the recording, Kaho Shimada. She was both praised and reviled for her performance, but she’s my favorite.
This song brings back all the bittersweet moments in my life when I’ve been head-over-heels for someone who had no idea how I felt.
“On My Own”
and now I’m all alone again
nowhere to go, no one to turn to
without a home, without a friend
without a face to say hello to
and now the night is near
now I can make believe he’s here.sometimes I walk alone at night
when everybody else is sleeping
I think of him and then I’m happy
with the company I’m keeping
the city goes to bed
and I can live inside my head.on my own
pretending he’s beside me
all alone, I walk with him till morning
without him
I feel his arms around me
and when I lose my way I close my eyes
and he has found mein the rain the pavement shines like silver
all the lights are misty in the river
in the darkness, the trees are full of starlight
and all I see is him and me
for ever and foreverand I know it’s only in my mind
that I’m talking to myself and not to him
and although I know that he is blind
still I say, there’s a way for usI love him
but when the night is over
he is gone, the river’s just a river
without him the world around me changes
the trees are bare and everywhere
the streets are full of strangersI love him
but every day I’m learning
all my life I’ve only been pretending
without me his world will go on turning
a world that’s full of happiness
that I have never knownI love him
I love him
I love himBut only on my own.