Here's To Life

I am so in touch with my inner 12 year old boy this spring, in part, because of my having been cut loose of the most difficult responsibilities & being cognizant of my audacious happiness, happiness that I may have given up ever living with again.


I was so happy today, even though I should be on the most cautious of budgets, I bought a turntable! In one week, a bicycle & a turntable! I appreciate that the same stuff that I swooned over 46 years ago still thrills me. I didn't even have to mow any lawns to come up with the dough. Getting old turns out to not be so bad. As long as I am still in the game, I’ll play.

When I chanced upon the tid-bit that May 1 is the birthday of Jazz artist Shirley Horn & my musical senses went immediately to her recording of Here’s To Life. Tonight, as the first day of May exits, I feel as if this song was being sung just to me.

She was decidedly not gay & not really a Gay Icon, but on her birthday, I want celebrate Shirley Horn’s amazing ability to accompany herself with nearly incomparable independence & ability on the piano while singing, something that I have only tried a few times, & when I did it in the musical- Pump Boys & Dinettes in the early 1990s, I only got away with it because it had a rock score.

Horn had a lush, smoky contralto, which begged the listener in close with her compelling confidential& vibrato-less delivery. Horn's reputation rode on her ballad work, with one of the slowest deliveries in jazz & a very unusual way of phrasing. I am looking forward to appropriating my parent's Horn albums on vinyl on my next visit to see them. I am also looking forward to my new life in Hi-Fidelity.

No complaints & no regrets

I still believe in chasing dreams & placing bets

For I have learned that all you give

 Is all you get

So give it all you’ve got

I had my share, I drank my fill

& even though I’m satisfied,

I’m hungry still.

To see what’s down another road

 Beyond the hill

& do it all again

So here’s to life,

& all the joy it brings.

Yes, here’s to life

& dreamers & their dreams

Funny, funny how the time just flies

How love can go from warm 

& those to sad goodbyes

& leave you with the memories you memorize

To keep your winters warm

How love can turn from warm hellos to sad goodbyes

& leave you with the memories

 You’ve memorized

To keep your winters warm.

There’s no yes in yesterday

& who knows what tomorrow brings

 Or takes away

As long as I’m still in the game I want to play

For laughs, for life, for love.

So here’s to life & all the joy it brings

Yes, here’s to life

& dreamers & their dreams

May all your storms be weathered

& all that’s good get better

Here’s to life, here’s to love, here’s to you.

May all your storms be weathered

& all that’s good get better

Here’s to life, here’s to love, here’s to you.

May all your storms be weathered

& all that’s good get better

Here’s to life, here’s to love, here’s to you.

Molinary/Butler

1962