A Dozen Roses for John

In the spring of 2001, I was planning to move from Hong Kong to Australia. At some point in the previous months – John will remember more exactly, he knows my memories are never very clearly date-stamped – John and I had met at an Australian musicology conference. This astoundingly beautiful, very shy and earnest, and very well-dressed (he wears a suit far better than I ever will) man told me that he thought my writing and editing were wonderful – it was a bit dizzying to hear that from someone who looked like that.

In any case, in May 2001, a few weeks after his birthday, I made him a CD with the above title. The song choices were all favorites of mine that I wanted to share – some of them still show up in some of my classes – and they covered a peculiar range of affection, satire, love, sensuality and sadness (plus a piece I'd written about, and was of course proud to include). I've just come on my own copy of the disc, with a shimmering rose-colored label and charmingly archaic fonts:

1 – Kate Bush, 'Under the Ivy' (1990)

2 – Lumin, 'Wild Orchid' (1998)

3 – Elliott Carter, 'The Rose Family' (1942/80)

4 – Ben Johnston, 'Amazing Grace' (1973)

5 – Pussy Tourette, 'I Think He's Gay' (1993)

6 – Sylvano Bussotti, 'Siciliano' (1962)

7 – Björk, 'Joga' (1997)

8 – Senleches/Xasax, 'En attendent esperance' (14th c./1998)

9 – Sting, 'I Burn for You' (1986)

10 – Dieter Schnebel, 'Schubert-Phantaisie' (1978/89)

11 – Bette Midler, 'In These Shoes' (2000)

12 – Stephen Sondheim, 'Good-Bye for Now' (1981)

They tell a remarkable story, at least to me… I lived with John for a year; when my visa and job blew up in Sydney, he told me to come live with him in Adelaide, which I did for a year.

He's still very beautiful, by the way….