Lyrics

Richard Matheson

• Publisher: RosettaBooks
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9780795316913
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: North American Literary Collections

Collected song lyrics penned by the celebrated author of What Dreams May Come and Bid Time Return.

Few of Richard Matheson's readers know that he had hopes for writing popular music. At a very early age, Matheson taught himself how to write sheet music, but his family could not afford the supplies and so he had to give up composition. But music never left his mind and when Matheson found a creative new outlet through his writing (cheaper than music, requiring only a pencil and paper), he quickly began composing both prose stories as well as poetry. He picked up music composition again at the age of seventeen, adding music to his poems. Here in Lyrics are the compositions that Matheson created, in publication for the very first time.

IT LOOKS LIKE RAIN

Verse:

Weather man
says skies are sunny.
Says it’s fair and warm
all the day
Weather man
Something is funny
I can see storm clouds
coming my way.

Chorus:

It looks like rain on my love
The dark clouds above
are chasing the sunbeams away
The ugly clouds of despair
Are hovering near today
Not long ago
Skies were blue
Blessed by the magic of you.
Now you are gone
and it seems
gone are the wonderful dreams
That I had
The days go by
and are gone
and though I go on
It’s different not having you near
The skies are gray and obscure
where there was sunshine before
It looks like rain
on my love affair.

My next lyric – still 1943 – succumbed to the obvious. (The music crammed with four-note chords.)

I’M IN LOVE WITH YOU

Verse:

I’ve got something on my mind
Something I must do
I have waited long to find
Someone just like you
You may well believe me
I am just that way
When I hold your hand
and say:

Chorus:

I’m in love with you
No words are simpler
Than these few
And yet the simple words are best
When they are really true
I’m in love with you
And yet that statement isn’t through
It needs your love so sweet and tender
To really render it true.
You and I should always be together.
Our hearts match forever and a day.
You and I should be birds of a feather
I know that this is true
That’s why I say
I’m in love with you
I know that I will always be
There’s only one thing that I ask
Please say that you love me.

* * * *

My creative drive definitely went out the window with my third song. I must have realized its inferiority (I hope that’s a word) because I credited it to an unknown writer, one Guy Casman.

WHEN YOU’RE FLOATING DOWN THE VOLGA WITH OLGA

Verse:

In Russia there’s a river
called the Volga
and on its banks
there lives a girl named Olga
Every day she goes rowin’
Olga on the Volga
And she’s not alo-ne

Chorus:

When you’re floatin’ down the Volga with Olga
and she looks at you with Russian eyes of blue
And you’re floating down the Volga with Olga
There’s really only one thing to do (kiss sound effect)
So you do not wish to leave Miss Olga
and for her love you pine
You had better ask her quickly
to be your wedded one
Or Olga to Volga
Olga to Volga
I’ll ask Olga to be mine

I obviously thought that translating “I’ll go” with “Olga” was terribly clever. It was terrible all right.

That summer, I even wrote a song to the Y.M.C.A. camp where I was a cabin leader. In two parts no less – Soprano and Harmony.

Chorus: (Mercifully there is no verse.)

Our lips
will sing your praise.
Our hearts will always
hold a special place for you.
We’ll dream
of happy days
in which we always gained
by learning something new.
The years will pass
yet even as they wane
The pleasant memories
will still remain
But now
when we are boys
we’ll fondly say your name
and sing this song to you
Camp Brooklyn, you!

While I was a cabin leader, I met the son of a well-known square dance caller who told me that, when I went to a N.Y. music publisher to play my songs, (which I did) someone in an adjoining room would be transcribing it in case it was any good. I still don’t know whether to believe that or not.

* * * *

Clearly overwhelmed by creative zeal, I even made a song from Chopin’s Etude in E.

ONLY A DREAM

Chorus:

Only a dream.
A distant view.
Only a wish
that never has come true
and lived for me.
Wishing for something that
I can never have
is nothing new.
Only a beat
within my heart.
A fairy tale
that never had a start.
A fantasy.
Love! I feel the magic growing
of your love but there’s no knowing
Who she is or where she is
Because
she’s just a gleam.
Just a hope that clings
and always brings
only a dream.

Well, the melody was beautiful anyway.

* * * *

There were others; I was grinding them out like sausages: SOMEONE I KNOW, ROLLIN’ ALONG, ONLY YOU, UNDER A SPELL, THE LAMP I SEE FROM MY WINDOW, EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU, etc. Often not completed or not worth completing.

My next songwriting opportunity came in 1943, at Cornell University when I enlisted in the A.S.T.P. (Army Specialized Training Program.) Actually, I can’t recall having spare time for song writing. At any rate I’m sure I couldn’t have thought up a rhyme for our residence hall named Cascadilla.

Next came the Infantry (A.S.T.P. students tossed into it – not too happily.) World War Two limited my song writing opportunities. I did enter a contest (sponsored by the Army I assume) to write an Army oriented lyric for an already existing song. Mine was:

Forgotten first line
When you hear those 88’s (German shell)
Dig without ado, digga-do, do, do.
Dig without ado, digga-do.

I didn’t win – or place in that contest.

One more song militarily “inspired.” This one written while I was on guard duty in England. (December 1944) Not too difficult to assess my frame of mind. I titled it LA VALSE DE MÉMORIE. Ouch.

Verse:

Night’s are long in the winter.
They’re bleak with the cold and the dark.
The warmth of my youth
has departed.
The fingers of time
left their mark.

Chorus: (or as I wrote it: TRISTEMENT: ouch again.)

When I am alone
with the night
and the winds lonely moan.
The memories I’v...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• It Looks Like Rain
• I’m in Love with you