Promised Love Song

I wanted to write a love song--I told you that. The theme of this project took me to Robert Burns' "My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose." Bob Dylan said once that Burns' lyric shaped Dylan's life more than any other song. I couldn't write that lyric. I wrote this one. This morning. The music feels kind of Celtic.


My love is only something like a rose.
My love is quite unlike the ones I've ever tried to grow.
They flamed and hung like treasure in my childhood,
then fell apart like autumn on the snow.


My love is only something like a rose,
only just a little like the ones my childhood knew.
They kissed me with their color, sweet and sultry,
then they flew in pieces when the dry wind blew.


     Something like those roses, but much sweeter,
     something so much lovelier than those,
     something like a rose but so much deeper,
     my love is only something like a rose.


She smiles more like a diamond than a rose.
She blooms in ev'ry season of my wild and windy life.
Her pages, soft and warm, unfold forever
from the never-ending center of my wife.

     Something like those roses, but much sweeter,

     something so much lovelier than those,

     something like a rose but so much deeper,

     my love is only something like a rose.