It never was you

Tim Tamashiro is a Japanese-Canadian singer who does standards with a deep, rumbling voice that reminds me of butter...and velvet.

This is how we met. In 2003, I was having a manicure for the very first time in a small nail salon in Chinatown, near my old office at Kreta Ayer Road. When the manicurist asked me for my name and I gave it, she brightened, saying the owner had the same name. She also told me that the wonderful music playing was chosen by my namesake, who loved jazz vocalists. I liked what I was hearing, so after the manicure, I found a Gramophone store and bought the album.

I loved it so much that I took it with me to graduate school in Michigan, and after countless listens, it was time to return with it to Singapore, but the jewel case for the CD went missing, so I had to place it with another CD. When I got home, I couldn't find it, not till two years later in 2007 when I was organizing my music on newly arrived shelves. I was thrilled. Tim still didn't have a case of his own so I put him with yet another CD.

Clearly, I hadn't learned my lesson. He went missing again. With four fully filled shelves, looking for Tim would be akin to looking for a needle in a haystack. It would turn up again one day, I comforted myself.

Last week, something stirred within me, and I remembered my favorite song from that album. I determined to hunt for it. Staring up at my four shelves, I vowed to open up every CD until I found Tim's. Yesterday, I found two other missing CDs tucked in the soundtrack and classical sections. That felt good, but Tim still hadn't turned up. He was somewhere in there; I was sure of it. Today, I was near the bottom of the third shelf when I finally found that elusive CD.

How ironic that the song I really wanted to listen to is called "It Never Was You."

I've been searching through rains
And the wind that follows after
For one certain face
And an unforgotten laughter
I've been following signs
I've been searching through the lands
For a certain pair of arms
And a certain pair of hands
Yes, I looked everywhere
You can look without wings
And I found a great variety
Of interesting things
But it never was you
It never was any way you
An occasional sunset reminded me
Or a flower hanging high on a tulip tree
Or one red star hung low in the west
Or a heart-break call from a meadowlark's nest
Made me think for a moment
Maybe it's true
I found her in the star
In the call
In the blue
But it never was you
It never was any way you
Anywhere, any way you

It Never Was You, by Tim Tamashiro

Posted by Monoceros at January 24, 2009 6:27 PM