Love songs help soothe ache of separation
| • | Love songs that go the distance |
By Tanya Bricking Leach
Advertiser Staff Writer
If there were a soundtrack to our lives, what would it sound like when we're thinking of loved ones far away?
We asked readers, who told us there's much more than silence to fill the empty space.
Kip Krieger and Vernyce Dannells have lived on separate islands for 11 of their 17 years of marriage.
Longing for someone can sound sweet or pained, beautiful or heartbreaking.
And just like love, it takes a certain chemistry to strike the right chord.
Better communication skills
Vernyce Dannells and Kip Krieger have lived on separate islands for 11 of their 17 years of marriage.
They met back when Dannells was in graduate school, when she went with a friend to a bookstore and wandered into Krieger's jewelry shop. Eventually, she had a bracelet repaired, and he tracked her down for a date.
They lived on Maui for seven years before a job took her to O'ahu. Dannells, 53, is a writer for the Hawaii Medical Service Association's Web team and author of a new book of poems called "Temporarily Abated" (Cadenza Press). Krieger, 57, designs and makes jewelry and is restoring their historic home on Maui.
Depending on the state of interisland fares, they see each other every five to 13 weeks. Over the years, they've learned to improve their communication techniques, and they look forward to their nightly phone calls.
"So many people have the myth in their mind of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder,' " said Dannells. "But really what it can do is make the mind scatter."
Sometimes, music helps her pull it together.
Her favorite song to bridge the distance is Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman."
"It's one of those songs that has survived over time," she said. "Percy Sledge's voice is so earnest and longing, and that's what it feels like when you're in love. It feels like love. It's not just a pretty song."
When Dannells and Krieger are together, they stop whatever they're doing when the song is playing.
"If it's on when we're in a supermarket," Dannells said, "he knows he has to slow dance with me."
"When a man loves a woman
Can't keep his mind on nothin' else
He'd trade the world
For a good thing he's found
If she is bad, he can't see it
She can do no wrong
Turn his back on his best friend if he puts her down"
Songs bring some to tears
Some love songs are enough for a man to get all mushy and not care what anyone thinks.
That's what happened to Jeremy Good, who is sentimental about tender moments with Hana Goldblatt, 22, who stole his heart when they met at the University of Delaware.
When Goldblatt returned to Hawai'i to be with her family in Kailua, the distance left an empty space in Good's heart.
That's when R&B singer Usher Raymond's "U Got It Bad" came on the radio and almost brought Good to tears.
"U got it, U got it bad
When you're on the phone
Hang up and you call right back
U got it, U got it bad
If you miss a day without your friend
Your whole life's off track"
Good, 22, was so stuck thinking about Goldblatt that he moved here to be with the University of Hawai'i-Manoa psychology student.
She's been gone for a few weeks on the Mainland helping a friend prepare for a wedding. Here at home, Good admits he's "Got It Bad."
'Say a Little Prayer for Me'
On campus or even in the world of celebrities, sentimental songs bridge the distance for people in Honolulu and Hollywood alike.
Maui visitor Lily Mariye, an actress who plays nurse Lily Jarvik on NBC's "ER," said she's frequently apart from her husband, Boney James, a jazz saxophonist.
"I always listen to Aretha Franklin's 'Say a Little Prayer for Me,' " Mariye said. "I do think about him all day long, and that's really what the song is about — just little thoughts about your loved one when he or she's away and saying a little prayer for them."
"I run for the bus, dear,
While riding I think of us, dear,
I say a little prayer for you.
At work I just take time,
And all through my coffee break-time,
I say a little prayer for you."
E-mails bridge gap
Little prayers were part of what got Amy Cawvey through her husband's yearlong deployment to Iraq this last year.
Brian Cawvey and Amy Cawvey
After surviving the year he was in South Korea shortly before that, Cawvey was a veteran of long-distance relationships.
While her husband, Bryan Cawvey, a paralegal in the Air Force, was gone, she'd e-mail him songs that were on her mind, such as Toby Keith's "American Soldier," which reminded her of them and their 10-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter.
"I'm just trying to be a father
Raise a daughter and a son
Be a lover to their mother
Everything to everyone
Up and at 'em bright and early
I'm all business in my suit
Yeah, I'm dressed up for success
From my head down to my boots"
Sometimes, Amy would cruise the deployment message boards on the Internet and read the messages from people trading song lyrics. Holidays were the worst, she said, and when she'd hear tribute songs on television or see videos of families reuniting set to music, she'd tear up.
Now that her husband is back, they'll be humming happier tunes.
'Dear John' victims
Time and distance have also made for some bittersweet memories.
Rico Leffanta, now retired and living in Waikiki, recalls working overseas on military-intelligence assignments during the 1950s and '60s.
He remembers wisdom from Paris, where he says the Duc de la Rochefoucauld's philosophy reigned: "L'absence diminue les mediocres passions, et augmente les grandes, comme le vent eteint les bougies, et allume le feu." Leffanta's translation: "Time is to love as the wind is to fire, it extinguishes the small and enkindles the great."
Then there's that other memory that sticks in his mind of being stationed in Germany from 1958 to 1962, and the Armed Forces Network constantly played the "Dear John" song because so few love affairs seemed to survive a three-year separation.
"That song never made an impact on me until a roommate received a 'Dear John' letter from a girl he idolized," Leffanta said. "For several days his heartbroken sobs were like bombs exploding in the barracks. Then he was quietly shipped off, never to be heard from again."
Even now, when he sees photos of troops departing for Iraq or Afghanistan, Leffanta says he looks at their faces and wonders whether the Armed Forces Network still plays "Dear John" (or "Dear Jane") and whether that will be the song that haunts their lives:
"Dear John,
Oh, how I hate to write!
Dear John, I must let you know tonight
That my love for you has died away
Like grass upon the lawn
And tonight I wed another, Dear John"
Long-distance dedications
For others, songs are long-distance dedications that exceed the boundaries of the here and now.
Holly Sprenger and Brandon Goodman
They're the songs that remind people of love that remains even after death.
Just three months ago, a week before Christmas, Holly Sprenger's boyfriend, Brandon Goodman, had an epileptic seizure while bodyboarding in Waikiki.
He was in the hospital in a coma for three days before he died Dec. 20. Goodman, a world traveler who grew up in Washington state and had just moved to Hawai'i to seek surf and adventure, was 23.
At his hospital bedside, 24-year-old Sprenger would comb his hair, talk to him and sing Sade's "By Your Side" over and over.
"It means a lot to me because he used to play Sade for me and didn't care that his roommates thought he was sappy," she said. "I miss him so much and I want to dedicate this song to Brandon."
"Oh, when you're cold
I'll be there, hold you tight to me
When you're on the outside, baby, and you can't get in
I will show you, you're so much better than you know
When you're lost, and you're alone and you can't get back again
I will find you, darling, and I will bring you home"
Tanya Bricking Leach writes about relationships for The Advertiser. Reach her at tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8026.
