Remember Montana

I get inspired to write words to what could be great songs, and and it happens at the “wrong” time.  Knee-deep in stories and newspaper assignments I make myself in the end of July, my mind wandered to another place and time.  I pulled out my poetry notebook I keep in my back pocket during lunch at a hamburger restaurant. I placed my order and waited.

That is when I wrote, “Remember Montana.” I have never been there, but I would like to go there someday.  If there are more musically-inclined (I gave up my clarinet after high school, but got one for Christmas for a comeback career) people than me who can change these words into a real song, go for it. Send an mp3 version and I’ll post it with the words. Anyway, here’s the poem, which by the way, is the Poem of the Month for August.

Remember Montana

There are times in my life
I look back and can see
If things were changed, I’d
Have reacted differently.
When it comes to loving you,
We had some good times,
And you know of the bad
But it more than just a line
When I say “Remember Montana.”

Remember that cabin by the river
and you loved watching the snow.
We walked among the pine trees
Even though you said you got cold.
You said you won the snowball fight
And then were warmed by the fire.
You were the only thing I needed as
Our feelings for each other got higher.

We’ll always have Montana, and
No one can take that away from us.
Even when we started to have problems
And things we didn’t want to discuss.
We’ll always have Montana, and I
knew then you would always be mine.
But somehow the passion we once had
slipped with the passage of time.

It’s more than a line, “Remember Montana.”
Let’s go back to that cabin by the river
and watch the falling of  the snow.
Let’s walk among the pine trees
And I’ll protect you from the cold.
Let’s have another snowball fight
And then get warmed by the fire.
You are the only thing I need now to
make sure our future will get brighter.

We’ll always have Montana, and
No one can take that away from us.
We’ll always have Montana.

Newsletter for the World of Word by Elias Tobias

    Good news.  The six-month review of this Web site shows fairly consistant numbers, but some things could be better, and they are since the audio part of the Web site has been started.  Soon all the original Love Note poems (the Love Note Category) will have audio versions ready to hear after reading the poem yourself.  Go to “A Special Love” for a preview as I get the others ready. I recorded these a while back, and we have just the playback going.  
    Also I have song written by an old college roommate who chose a special poem to sing. Catch the one-take of the song with Next Flight.  Next on the list to do is a video or two.  I photo biography is planned.  Also I have about 26 poems translated into Spanish, and I plan to put them up in a special bookor category.  This is a work in progress.
    The response to the free poetry forum has not been what I expected, so let others read your poems. No money is involved, but you’ll get some comments about your poems.  See the page about the free poetry forum for details.
    Have a good summer.

Elias Tobias

    I went to college at Ball State University at Muncie, Indiana, and spent my freshman year in Edwards Hall.  Because of overbooking the class of 1979, the first quarter was in a three in a two-man room.  When I got a chance to get out of that situation, I had a roommate that was a radio and television major, but was very good at music.  His name was Michael Albright.  I shared a few of my poems with him, and in those days my early poems were typed in a 6-by-8 inch book I kept adding pages to since computers are not what they are like they are now.  That year, 1976, I was still using Olan dey Gabona as my pen name. I didn’t start using my  Elias Tobias until 1990.
   One evening I checked out a good cassette recorder from the library and arranged for Mike to meet me in the lounge at the hall’s piano.  He looked through the poems, and I though he would pick a poem that be more of a song, but to within minutes he read the poem, Next Flight, and I could see the notes dancing in his head.  Like some things in life,there is one take, and this was one those times.
     I have since had the song’s notes put down on paper, and had the music, words, and the written song copyrighted. But this was done several years later, near the time I graduated.   That summer of 1976,  Mike had car problems on a highway hear his home in Anderson, Indiana, near Muncie.  He was walking back to his home at night.  A drunken driver crossed the center line, and hit him, running over his legs.  He bled to death, and the driver was never found to my knowledge.
     There was a song by Elton John out around this time called Rocket Man, and this poem has that kind of point of view.  I thought it was ironic that he chose the poem with the words, “take me on the next flight to earth.”
     You can here the audio recorded on the first take here. I hope you enjoy the song.   Check out a video of this song at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYLcL43rBoI.
 

Next Flight
Take me on the next flight  to earth;
it is the only home, I know.
It’s where good people are
and big oak trees grow.
It’s a place where people are
rhyming rhymes.
It’s a place without moving time.
Take me on the next flight  to earth;
It’s  a place filled of good
times of yesteryear,
not as place of nuclear fear.
Take me on the next flight back
to earth, I long to be near.  

Delayed Reaction 

Delayed Reaction

That night you lit the fuse,
 but the colors of the fireworks
were seen later after I felt your
love explode in my heart and soul.
It took time for the pyrotechnics to
glow enough for everyone to see
that you really loved me.