Track 3: "Child of the Falling Star"
Celestial phenomenon precedes birth of Santa Fe girl
On the night that you were born a star fell to the Earth
Watching breathless as the sky was torn,
It was an omen of your birth
Nobody knows from whence you came
Nobody knows how far
But you burst forth like a meteor
Child of the Falling Star
Beware the basket cases, dear, beware the evil geeks!
Some with bullets, some with briefcases
They prey upon the weak
It's a dangerous world you've entered in
So remember who you are
You rode in on a blaze from outer space
Child of the Falling Star
"It's a Girl," your mother purred
Your Poppa handed out cigars
With fire and smoke, the Gods invoked
Child of the Falling Star.
copyright Sidhe Gorm Music (BMI)
(written 1981)
It was a cold Santa Fe night in January. Earlier in the day Ronald Reagan had been inaugurated as president of these United States. Ayatollah Khomeini’s government had released all of the U.S. hostages who had been imprisoned there for more than a year.
In our little apartment off Palace Avenue, (back in the day when struggling entertainers, freelance journalists and substitute teachers could afford places off Palace Avenue), my then-wife Pam and I were watching television when her contractions became serious.
“I’m pretty sure it’s time,” she said.
We’d been waiting more than nine months for this. We put on our shoes, grabbed Pam’s bag and went down to our car to drive to St. Vincent Hospital.
Just a few blocks from St. V’s, driving along a dark little residential street, across the skies burned the biggest, brightest, most spectacular falling star I’d ever seen. Or have ever seen since.
I’m not sure whether Pam saw it. She was pretty busy enduring her contractions. But I know she heard me shout, “Wow! Did you see that?”
A true sign from above.
And a few hours later – much longer than we’d expected it would take – our 7-pound, 11-ounce daughter was born.
Molly Summers Terrell. Bursting forth like a meteor.
The delivery went without complication. But, as I wrote about in Snazzy Life, residual paranoia brought on by listening to too much anti-drug propaganda plus my own lingering guilt over “every sick joke I ever told about kids being born with only one big eyeball.”
All that prompted me to count all of Molly’s fingers and toes – 10 each, whew! – the first chance I got.
For days I was a giddy, happy mess. The joy and pride of new parenthood was enhanced by the memory of that meteor I saw on the way to the hospital.
I knew I had to write a song.
Obviously I’m not the first proud Poppa to write a song about his beautiful daughter. Another Stevie did this one:
But that omen of the falling star was just too good to ignore.
And, yes, I’ll call it an omen, even though I’m basically agnostic. Come on! Life without poetic metaphors would be like a world without tacos.
Here is some wisdom about shooting stars from Melissa Mayntz in the Farmer’s Almanac:
In the second century, the Greek astronomer Ptolemy hypothesized that [shooting stars] were a result of the gods peering down from heaven, having parted the heavens to do so and therefore dislodging a star in the process. Because a shooting star was a tangible symbol of the gods looking down at that moment, it was believed that a wish or request made upon seeing the star was more likely to be heard and granted.
Also this:
In the sixth century, the Chinese philosopher Confucius interpreted shooting stars as manifestations of departed souls moving beyond. That journey to heaven – or the reverse, with a recently passed soul falling to the underworld – has been echoed in many cultures, including in Mongolia, Ireland, the British Isles, ancient Greece, and New Zealand.
In some beliefs, a shooting star is believed to be a new soul returning to earth to be reborn.
That’s what I’m talking about.
Mayntz goes on to say that not all falling star superstitions are happy and positive. “In Eastern Europe and Mexico, shooting stars represent evil spirits, bringing bad fortune to those below.”
But to Hell with that. What a bunch of Gloomy Guses!
But my little song does have a verse of warning to the new little soul.
Besides the world events around the time of Molly’s birth I mentioned at the top of this piece, there was another news story from the previous month that still was haunting me:
The murder of John Lennon.
I’m pretty sure I wrote “Falling Star” before the March 30 attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. But even though I never was a fan of Reagan (except maybe once), I’d still classify John Hinckley, Jr. an “evil geek” along with Mark David Chapman.
It was like a weird malignant spirit was hovering over the U.S. Today there are different malignant spirits. But no shortage of evil geeks.
Fans of Woody Guthrie should have no problem determining the line “Some with bullets, some with briefcases / They prey upon the weak.”
If you don’t know, wait until the final verse of his song below:
But that troubling verse about armed evil shitheads preying on the weak, hopefully, was offset by the final verse (a half-verse actually) with the purring mama and the proud Poppa handing out cigars.
As for those cigars, I didn’t pass out no cheap-ass Roi-Tans or cheesy Muriels. My old colleagues at Stag Tobacconists -- where I’d worked full-time in the mid ‘70s and part-time later in the early ‘80s – gave me a box of H. Upmanns to hand out.
I don’t remember exactly how I came up with the melody for “Falling Star.” I knew I wanted it to be a little spooky and mystical. I was (and am) a big fan of the British folk-rock group Steeleye Span and for some reason started working on something similar to their song “Edwin.”
Check this out and see if you find any similarities:
“Edwin” was a murder ballad I wrote about 10 years ago for my blog. (See link above.) As I confessed there:
Not only is it a delightfully gruesome tale of young lovers vs. truly evil parents (Spoiler Alert: The truly evil parents win!) It also has a great guitar lick that I shamelessly appropriated for my own song, "Child of the Falling Star."
(Sheepish confession: Listening now, I realize, it’s actually a bass riff that my brother Jack turned into a prominent guitar riff.)
I’m referring to those four notes that appear right before the final couplet of each verse, i.e. right after, “Nobody knows from whence you came /Nobody knows how far.”
Of course the tale of poor doomed Edwin had nothing to do with Molly’s birth or the meteorite I saw that night. Even when Molly grew into her teenage years, I never had the urge to behead any of her boyfriends.
But I still love that “Edwin” line “He little thought a sword that night would part his body and head.”
The main musical element that differentiates “Falling Star” from other songs on Potatoheads, are the ethereal background vocals of my sister Mary.
Her “ooooh ooooh” vocalizing at the beginning of the song and between verses is the main thing I’m talking about. (She also performed that nice harmony behind me on the final verse.)
Honestly, it would have been a different and weaker song without Mary.
Eleven years and nearly a month after Molly was born, my second child, my son Anton burst forth like a meteor.
But I didn’t see any falling star on the way driving his mom to the hospital. And I never wrote him a song.
By this point in my life, my music “career” was long gone. My dreams of music stardom long dead. And my songwriting muse had gone out for a pack of cigarettes never to return.
I’d been working almost a decade as a full-time journalist by the time my second child, Anton, was born. Maybe that having to shift to that linear, logical, just-the-facts way of consciousness helped push away that muse.
I wanted to write a song for him but that starlight spark a songwriter needs just never came. I had to show him my love in other ways. I hope that never made him feel bad. It has bothered me through the years.
Now, enjoy my song (This video is different than most of the others. I slapped it together myself for her birthday circa 2012 using some simple YouTube program. It’s got a bunch of photos of Molly, from her first baby picture to one of her and her first baby and lots of family and friends in between. So enjoy the video as well):
Credits:
Steve Terrell, lead vocals, acoustic rhythm guitar
Jack Clift: lead guitar, producer
Mike Roybal: bass
David Valdez: drums
Mary Kyle: vocals
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Mary's singing on this really is gorgeous. Jack's playing is pretty sweet, too.