ABOUT "STAY WITH ME TONIGHT"

This song wasn't always so Norah-Jones-y.  It began as a plea, a prayer, a desperate rain dance.

 I live in Vancouver, Canada.  It rains a lot here.    I'm not from here, so I am not used to the rain. It depresses me.  Of all the places I could have chosen to live, I picked the one that  presses all my buttons, that drives me mad, that challenges me beyond measure.  Every winter, when the rains start, I brace myself for a battle, and the battle comes, and I fight it with everything I have.  And when it's over, I feel victorious, triumphant, and exhausted.

But all that is for another post.  Let's get back to the song.

I wrote it as the incessant rains were pouring, pouring, pouring from the sky. I was depressed.  But I liked the song. Writing it made me feel better.  Plus, I wrote it on piano, which was a first for me.   But it was really personal, intensely so.  So I changed the words a little bit when it came time to record.  I didn't want to sing my depression song in any permanent way.  Why give the monster such a long life?

If you listen to the song in this context, it's a whole different thing than it is now in its Norah Jones-y version.  Mostly I just changed the last line in every verse, from something like "I need the sun to come out" to "stay with me tonight."   For example:

Crying, oh Lord I'm crying
can't see the river for to cross
even though I'm trying
the curtains are all open
and I'm wishing and I'm hoping
for a little sun and little shine and a little time  - old words, changed to
that I'll be alright and you'll stay with me tonight - new words

in this verse, the curtains being open, and the crying, were literal.  While I was writing the song, I cried a lot -  depression will do that - and I literally opened all the curtains, to let in any bit of light that might be able to come in.  And I stood by the open windows and I looked out at the rain and I prayed for it to stop.  It didn't stop.  Not that night or the next night or the night after that.  It stopped much later, when it was good and ready. I don't think my prayers had anything to do with it.

So that's the story of "Stay with me Tonight",  which formerly had another title which I have since forgotten.