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Nellie
in those first days
she was on her own
she taught a one-room school
she’d always spank the kids at just the proper time
and when her own children came she’d hold them on her knee
and she’d tell them just how things should be
and she’d welcome her man home
and wherever they were was home
in later years
she would welcome strangers into their home
built up on blocks by the river
with two rocking chairs by the rising tide
and a crumbling dock where the boat was tied
and they sat and watched the sunset alone
and they stood against the world alone
tell me who it is
that thinks they have the right
to tell someone they’ve lived enough
Nellie, why won’t you fight it
tell me, how can you just accept it
to me it’s surely wrong
in these last days
since Ralph’s been gone
she just sits and smiles
by the fireplace her children built when they moved in
and says, “Don’t you think that’s lovely Georgia stone?”
and they say that anymore she can’t be on her own
but in her mind begins the reprise
of all the things she still believes
tell me who it is
that thinks they have the right
to tell someone they’ve lived enough
come on, Nellie, why won’t you fight it
tell me, how can you just accept it
to me it’s surely wrong
if I know right from wrong
this is surely wrong
if that means I’m naive
please just let me be
Reviews
Sweetly remembered and valued. Brightens my day. Thank you for sharing. —Marilyn M.
Thanks for sharing this wonderful history of family! —Barb M. D.
Fabulous —Cathie P.
Similar to wonderful memories I have of my own Paternal Great Grandparents. Great to have. Hugs —Karen B.
Inspiring..thank you… —Cecilia A.
A remarkable song for a remarkable lady with a remarkable legacy! —Carol L. S.
Wow, I loved it! Your words are powerful and meaningful..Bless you! —Charlotte H.
A gorgeous melody and a very sympathetic and lovely to listen to arrangement and orchestration. The lyric is obviously personal to you… —Andy C.
Truly love your new/old song. As a fan of story songs, this rings the bell for me. You paint a loving portrait and tell their story through time with tenderness. I was smitten… —David B.
2021 Notes
I knew my great-grandparents as well as most people know their grandparents. Ralph Waldo Emerson May (1886–1967) and Nellie Mae (Beem) May (1885–1973), my maternal grandmother’s parents, lived lives that might have sprung out of a romantic novel: both children of ambitious, “frontier” families; well-educated, both teachers in early life; married in 1910; raised four children on an apple farm in Michigan; traveled to Florida back when it took 22 days to make the journey (and neighbors came to say goodbye because they weren’t sure they’d ever see them again); bought a house on the Little Manatee River during the Florida land boom and planted an orange grove; stood up to bootleggers with shotguns during the Prohibition; and the list goes on…
The great-grandparents I knew were loving, caring, hard-working people who were the very definition of hospitality. I was on the receiving end of that hospitality very early in my life, when Mom used one of their dresser drawers as a crib for me when I was barely three months old. I was to visit them nearly every winter after that. They, in turn, would often visit us in the summers.
The first thing Grandpa Ralph would do when we arrived each winter was show us where all the ripest oranges and tangerines were. He’d take us fishing and regale us with tales of American Indians and geology—he told us Florida would once again be under water someday, long before Global Warming became a hot button issue. He’d take me on his lap in the old rocking chair and, aware of my keen interest in science fiction, ask me if I believed there was really life on other planets. And if things were getting too serious, he’d wrinkle his forehead until we’d all start to laugh.
Grandpa Ralph died when I was 14, but Grandma Nellie lived another six years. I had a soft spot for her, I guess. She had a strong faith and acted as if she couldn’t be happier when us kids were strewn all over her living room floor in sleeping bags. And she opened her home not just to family, but friends, and even people she hardly knew. She cooked and cooked and cooked. She always seemed interested in everything we did. When she visited us in the summer, she’d look forward all day to arguing baseball with my dad. I remember on one of her last trips, during my brief drum-playing period, when she fell asleep listening to me practice on my set in the living room.
When I heard that she’d been taken to a nursing home, I did not take the news well, and wrote this song, Christmas Day, 1972.
I was in my third year at University of Michigan at the time, studying music composition, and I took the song to my lesson with the distinguished composer, Leslie Bassett. I worked up my courage, sat down at one of the two beautiful grand pianos in his studio and began to play—and as I think about it, I can’t really recall ever performing the song anywhere else.
After I was done, he said to me in his usual, caring way, “Doug, if you want me to teach you how to write music, you’ll have to write something in a style I can help you with. You already write pop songs like this better than I can, so I can’t help you with that.”
Partly due to my great-grandparents’ influence, I became the family historian for a good number of years, and wrote down all the particulars I could glean from many taped interviews with elder family members—including their four children. I also visited research locales when I was on singing trips in the Midwest to fill in the details of their parents’ stories. I distributed the book to my family, but many stories remain to be told…
Today, the house by the river—an icon of my childhood—is gone, but the old live oak remains. And those sweet memories of Ralph and Nellie will ever remain some of the most beautiful of my life. I love you, Grandma Nellie, and always will.
Music Notes
I wrote “Nellie” on Christmas day, 1972, the day after “Keep This Heart Tender,” which I recorded a couple years ago. I’m so happy and thankful to finally be able to record this tribute.
The song’s “premiere” incident, described above, is the first musical note of note. You’ll hear Burt Bacharach’s influence in the harmonies and the structure, and in the addition of a tag at the end. Maybe it was also because of his influence that I immediately imagined using a solo trumpet on this one, which he used very often. Its soulful, Americana quality really seemed to fit. I had to rely on Embertone’s Chapman Trumpet sample library for that, since I don’t have any trumpet players in my hip pocket over here, and I’m very happy with how it turned out.
I guess the only other things to note would be the prominent toms, the muted strings, and the doubled vocal on the choruses, hearkening back to a technique used in many of my earlier recordings. I hope this song evokes for you—as recording it has for me—many loving memories.
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