Larceny

Written in 1975, I think this may be my masterpiece. I'll start the blog with this. Dana Cox covered it beautifully on her eponymous album sometime in the 1990's: I have the vinyl but there's no copyright date or other date on it. It's also sung by beautifully by Dana on our Last Frontier Band CD. Just google that. I'll set up some links here later.

I clearly remember jotting Larceny down on a notepad while driving Steve Bettis's VW camper from Rainbow Valley toward Anchorage, likely for a gig at the Bread Factory, sigh, Alaska one afternoon in 1975 or '6. It was the early corollary of texting while driving. I wrote this song for a wonderful woman whom I'd left behind in Knoxville, unready as I was to actually be in love, though obviously I was in love.  I didn't feel honest, or ready to be so, hence "Larceny." All you young ladies out there--the guys get it together later. It's an irony of maturity.

All that's a long story, but one I'll likely never tell, except in this song.


Larceny
by Scott Merrick

your touch is what amazed me
the smoothness of your hands
the only softness I have seen
not tied to some demand
or other
it's so hard
to be your lover,
larceny is so simple,
can't you see?

you took you in and made a friend
and i soon lost my restlessness as
distances to overcome
began to matter less and less is
this the long awaited message?
everything is oh so simple
can it be?

opening my heart i felt i'd
opened up an attic window
let the summer breezes then blow through
i love

your touch is what amazed me

the smoothness of your hands

the only softness I have seen 

not tied to some demand

or other

it's so hard 

to be your lover,

larceny is so simple,
can't you see?
everything is oh so simple,

can it be?