Nothing on You

words & music by Doug Howell • © 2023 Creative Measures LLC

the stars have nothing on you
one silly grin can outshine them
and in one glance I can find
much more to wish upon

the wind has nothing on you
just a whisper outsings it
and in your voice I can hear 
a hope worth dreaming on

were you in his mind
when he taught the sun to shine
did he show you just the touch
that makes the shadows fly

(instrumental verse)

was our love foretold
when he taught the tide to roll
did he draw you like the moon
to fill this thirsty soul

the sea has nothing on you
in your arms I can sail it
leaving time in our wake
we race the setting sun

I’ll set my compass by your eyes
and I’ll come sailing to your side

Reviews

I don’t even know where to start. Except that I had to pull over into a parking lot so I could listen to it again without crashing. It’s so rich on many levels, the lyrics, your voice, the orchestration, the sea, the melody. I love how it rises at the end of the first line of each verse. Clearly it was/is borne of passion, deep-seated love and gratitude. And I enjoyed reading your sweet prelude to the piece. It’s my new Dougie favorite 😍 Thank you for writing and recording it. —Chris B.

That is so beautiful. Has me in tears. Your words and feelings are magical. Thank you for sharing. —Barbara G. P.

Another classic Doug Howell composition! All the best to you and David – congratulations! —Dan L.

Beautiful Doug Howell, 34 years is amazing, congratulations! —Deb B.

Your words and love INSPIRE us all; how grateful to be in your realm 💜🙏🏻💜. Here’s to many many more anniversary celebrations and inspiring lyrics and composition 💜👏🏼🎶👏🏼💜 —Jeri P. D.

I listened to this song and a few more. After all these years, your voice carries your unique wonderful emotion that moves hearts. Thank you ❤️ —Randy T.

Beautiful music, and the lyrics are AMAZING. You are VERY good at what you create, Doug. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, and congratulations! 💖🎶🎶 —Michael A. E.

2023 Notes

We were sitting in the living room having our coffee a few mornings ago, and it had just rained. A steady, peaceful rain. I watched as the droplets climbed down the rain chain, like a ladder stretched ‘twixt heaven and earth. The rays of the sun seemed to tease them as they made their way down, pausing on each rung, each taking its turn preening whenever the sun happened to grace it with a sudden burst of light—now gold! Red! Blue!

I told Davey about it. And then he got up and opened the doors. Within seconds, a subtle breeze, gentle but enormous, cool, refreshing, drifted over me. The air was full of moisture, of quiet morning murmurings, and possibility. 

“You know, Davey,” I said. “That’s what you always do. I think it’s what you were born to do. And that’s what you’ve always done for me.”

“What?” he asked.

“Open the doors,” I said. And it’s true. I am content, thinking my thoughts, reading my book, writing my letters… And then he opens a door, and I realize there’s a whole world outside. A friendly, beautiful world. He fleshes out my thoughts—“embodies” them, I guess you could say. Yeah, I guess that’s it. He somehow knows just how to transform love from a disembodied ethereal tease into a real, embodied thing, strong as iron. And why shouldn’t love be expressed in our bodies? Not just the spirit, the soul, the mind! After all, isn’t that what Jesus’ trip into humanity was all about?

And when David opened the doors, yet again, as he does almost every morning, I realized: that’s what he always does. He makes things possible. I’ve thought of this before, and especially when I rerecorded “House on the Ocean” in 2019, but it really came home to me again in that moment.

And that brings me to the song. Though it was begun years before I met David, I could never quite finish it. I’ve tried a couple times, but it just never seemed to come together. This year, as I was wondering which of my dormant love songs to bring to light (and sound) for Valentine’s Day, I thought again of this one, and it seemed like it might finally be time. So I went searching for one of my favorite pics of Davey, the one before you now, and suddenly things started happening. Kind of like that breeze I was talking about earlier. I started filling in missing lyrics, finishing lines crossed out or ending with dot-dot-dots in the original handwritten scrawl, revisiting melody notes with question marks and revoicing problematic chords. Then I fleshed it out on the piano. Yes, the one Guess Who encouraged me to get last September. Only fitting.

OK, it’s sappy, I admit. Think Son of Rachmaninoff. But then, that’s how I felt as I gazed upon that photo, which still has the power to send me into one of my cinematic sanctitudes (“Dweller by the Dark Stream” reference). I saw the face of someone who was born to make melodies start and dreams fly—and is still doing both after 34 years. So yes, I suppose it is a bit sappy. But I offer no apology. Just gratitude. After all, someone has to balance out all the bubblegum pop around these days.

I remember a string session I was conducting in Ann Arbor, Michigan many years ago, and overhearing some of the student violinists mocking Rachmaninoff, which was definitely the wrong thing to do within my hearing. I let them know in no uncertain terms what I thought of their assessment, and that I considered his Second Symphony (the piece they were lampooning) home to several of the world’s most beautiful melodies, and some of the most nuanced—and romantic—string writing in existence. 

Rachmaninoff endured many criticisms of a similar nature during his lifetime, and many considered his music to be too unabashedly romantic, hearkening back to an earlier time rather than looking forward like many of his contemporaries. But he was doing what he was born to do; writing down the music he was born to hear. And no one in the world has ever written long, excruciatingly beautiful melodies better than he did. Let’s face it, some of them were longer than entire pop songs today. In a Twitter and TikTok world, no one has the patience for them anymore. He seemed to respond to the criticisms by making his own melodies shorter and shorter through the passing years. He himself redacted many of the “extended” passages in his own Second Symphony, removing minutes-long passages that only began to be restored by conductors in the 1970s. And in his Fourth Piano Concerto, though the passion is most definitely still there, it is much more restrained, compressed and chromatic than in his earlier works.

Well, as someone who’s played and loved his music from highschool days, I relate best to the young, idealistic Rachmaninoff, with whole symphony orchestras at his behest and all of time at his beck and call. He was in no hurry then, and neither am I. I’d rather have my time run out in the middle of a long melody than in the middle of a TikTok video.

So here you have it, a song that could only be finished under the influence of my favorite photo of my favorite person. Davey, this one’s for you: we’re living a dream, a dream you brought to life, a song you helped finish, a melody with no end in sight.

Music

I asked for some help from the stars, the wind and the sea for this one, and I got it! Thanks to Glaneur de sons [Gleaner of Sounds] for the use of Vent – wind (1), wind on the Mont Jerbier de Jonc (Ardeche, France); and chriscrosby for Waves on Crosby Beach…, a recording of small waves lapping over the sand at ebb tide on Crosby beach in the Mersey estuary, Liverpool, UK. Both used under Creative Commons license, v3.0 and 4.0, respectively. If you’re wondering about the “star sounds” (although as we all know, there is no sound in space) I used a “bowed plynk” sound on the Absynth 5 synthesizer for that.