Roy Orbison

By the time I was born, both of my grandfathers had passed away and I had only grandmas left. One grandmother lived within three hours and I saw her several times a year. She would come and visit and stay in my room and I was displaced to the living room couch. During her stays I often struggled with how to connect to a loved one that I felt shared no commonalities with myself. She made amazing sugar cookies and loved a challenging crossword puzzle.

During one visit several years ago, I found out that she loved Roy Orbison. This became our bond. She said that in the early sixties in Southern Idaho, there were only two types of people: those that liked Elvis and those that liked Roy. Rarely did somebody like both. As she talked about Roy's music I began to envision my grandma fifty years younger, perhaps my age, and listening to "Blue Bayou" on the kitchen radio as she made dinner for my mother. I could see her listening to "In Dreams" as she clean the house or did the wash. Roy's beautiful tenor voice and sad songs moved her for the same reasons it still moves me.

In 1966, Orbison's wife died in a motorcycle accident, leaving him to father his three sons as a widower. Two years later, while touring in Europe, Roy was notified that his house in Tennessee had burned down, killing two of his three sons. The gravity of his personal life was often heard in his haunting lyrics and ever quivering voice.

Here are three songs from his Black and White concert. His band consisted of Bruce Springsteen, KD Lang, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello and others...

In Dreams

A candy-colored clown they call the sandman
Tiptoes to my room every night
Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper
Go to sleep. everything is all right.

I close my eyes, then I drift away
Into the magic night. I softly say
A silent prayerlike dreamers do.
Then I fall asleep to dream my dreams of you.

In dreams I walk with you. in dreams I talk to you.
In dreams youre mine. all of the time were together
In dreams, in dreams.

But just before the dawn, I awake and find you gone.
I cant help it, I cant help it, if I cry.
I remember that you said goodbye.

Its too bad that all these things, can only happen in my dreams
Only in dreams in beautiful dreams.

Only The Lonely


Blue Bayou