That Summer

(album: Short Stories - 1977)

It was the same summer I learned to play
'It Had To Be You' on the piano
The same summer we jumped the fence at the fair
And you won in two throws the pink dog I tried all night to win

There's a storehouse of song titles
I can recite from that summer
I hear one every now and then
It seems I'm always driving when I hear one

I turn the radio up and blank my mind
And let it drift, it's a good thing
I never hear more than one at a time
Or I don't think I could see to drive

I see pictures taken that summer
Every time I give my personal belongings
Their annual cleaning out
Remember the one that was taken
In your back yard the evening of graduation?

You wrote on the back, you wrote
Well you know what you wrote
Or maybe you don't but I do

I still go to the same theater we went to that summer
I always sit about tenth from the back on the right
You always got a headache if we sat any closer
And had to squint if we sat any farther back

You were a lot of trouble to me
Of course I see the same people
We saw that summer
None of them ever mention you

I guess they don't know
I still remember you like I do
Or maybe they do know
I still remember you like I do
Maybe that's why they don't mention you

And the places, the places are still there
Although most of them have changed
That narrow bumpy dirt road up to the knoll
Where we used to park has been paved
And a new housing development has gone in

Houses, cars, and people have invaded our place
Where your innocence became my guilt
People live daily as if nothing has ever happened
On that piece of ground

I've learned other songs on the piano
The fair doesn't come anymore
Until late September
And those songs make me
Sad now instead of happy

The pictures have gotten bent
And corners broken off
They've put on a new wide screen
And swinging chairs in the theater

The people have grown older
And the knoll is a pool of lights after dark
But the summers are still hot and that's the
'Bout the only thing that hasn't changed
Except that I still love you