I dedicate my song today to my Facebook friend, Philip Ellis from Leeds, along with any of my Facebook contacts who spend their days and nights alone because they have no loving partner with whom to share their life.
Philip is having an emotionally difficult year during 2020. His dear father recently died in Hospital and Philip passed his 50th birthday landmark as a single man; a status he would willingly change if the right person came along. In the courtship-leading to marriage stakes, so far Philip is proving to be a non-runner. Ironically, such disappointment tends to come most to the nicest and kindest of people.
Like many men and women out there of single status who want to be settled down with a loving partner to return home to at the end of the day, being constantly on one’s own sucks! Ever since God created the earth and made man, He also found it necessary to create woman. Every Adam needs an Eve (or as our Gay friends might say ‘Every Sabastian needs a Steve’). The one thing that the overwhelming majority of us want in our lives is another to share it with; someone to love and who loves us in return. This human need is what places having a soulmate at the very top of our wish list.
Sadly, this essential need of most of us is not always available to some of us, and the only consolation the ‘reluctant singles’ can have is the knowledge that their disappointment of failing to get what they most want at least shows they are trying!
As a person who has never once had to spend either a day or night alone without another beside me (unless I chose to be alone), I know deep within that individual success in the ‘love stakes’ is wedded to positive expectation and individual confidence and has almost nothing to do with physical looks.
Only by ‘not trying too hard’ are we able to balance our expectations/needs/successful outcomes. It is true that while one ‘unsuccessful single’ may get closer to their objective through a gentle nudge in the right direction by a well-intentioned friend’s advice, there will undoubtedly be another ‘stubborn single’ who is hell-bent on continuing to do the wrong thing which they have done all their life in the hope of achieving the right result this time. A gentle nudge is wasted on the latter singleton; they need a kick up the Khyber Pass to get them to change track! It is unfortunately sad but true that even making the proper approach towards another can sometimes invite too harsh a rejection and unnecessary hurt. Some people can be very insensitive and cruel in their response whenever declining the appropriate advances of another. It is little wonder why Noah decided to fill his ark with animals instead of humans when he started his voyage of new discovery.
There are only two pieces of advice that I would deign to give any person seeking a partner and that is; first, you will never find any good person who is willing to be your lifelong partner if you persist in looking for him/her in bad company. Second, finding love comes easier to any person who has previously found it in themselves.
As a young man whose greatest fault was forever ‘falling in love’ with every young woman I dated, I now know why I needed to fall in love so often. It was a narcissistic part of me which ‘loved myself’. I wasn’t, in fact, falling in love with the beautiful young woman who I was dating; I was falling in love with who I was and what I felt like when I was with her.
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’She’s the One’. This song was originally recorded by the British rock band ‘World Party’. It was written and produced by Karl Wallinger for World Party's fourth studio album, ‘Egyptology’ in 1997’
The song won an ‘Ivor Novello Award’ in 1997. It was featured in the 1997 movie, ‘The Matchmaker’, and the 1998 movie, ‘The Big Hit’. World Party performed the song live on the British TV show, ‘Later with Jools Holland’ in 1998. In 1998, Robbie Williams also recorded a successful cover of the song.
The song went on to win a number of awards around the world, including a ‘2000 Brit Award’ for ‘Best Single of the Year’ and ‘British Video of the Year in 2000’. It also won a Capital Radio Award for Best Single.
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When this song was first released, I was 54 years old and had been prematurely retired for two years on the grounds of ill health from my career as a Probation Officer. An horrific traffic accident at the boyhood age of 11 years had left me unable to walk for three years after being wrapped around the main drive axel of the wagon which knocked me down and ran over me and mangled my legs badly. I needed over fifty operations over the ensuing years to correct them.
I was warned when I left the hospital in Batley after having been an inpatient there for nine months that, whether I walked again or not, I would always suffer from rheumatic and osteoarthritis in my legs and that even if I ever regained my walking functioning, a time would inevitably come in later life when arthritis would become so severe that I would be rendered unable to walk again. How accurate they were!
By the age of 53 years, I found myself being unable to walk even the smallest of distances and despite having two knee and hip replacements within the following seven years, my mobility remained permanently restricted to severe disability level.
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By the age of 15 years, I had started to improve my walking ability following my bad traffic accident. Gradually, over the following six years before I went to live in Canada for two years, I experienced a more normal teenage life. I was able to work, dance, drink, and fight with the best of my peers, and life was extremely good to me once more.
My parental genes had presented me with reasonably good-looking features, and I was popular with my peer group. I was highly confident in all I undertook and was also very competent in my work life, personal life, and overall capabilities. If I could place my natural modesty to one side for a minute, I’d have to say that I was a much sought-after young man to date by the young women who knew me. I knew that their mothers would have considered me a good catch, had their daughters been clever enough to ensnare me into marriage.
I was one of the most romantic teenagers who ever graced the arm of any fair damsel, but I was also proved to be a sucker if I ever witnessed one of them in distress. I cannot count the number of injuries from fights I notched up rescuing young women from the dangerous clutches of the arms of some other man who was not worthy of them!
My greatest fault in the courtship stakes, however, was that I was never interested in joining the field of non-runners. I was a teenager more interested in dating beautiful young women, not 'courting' them! To me, ‘courtship’ sounded too permanent the type of relationship to make it appealing to me, whereas ‘having a good date for the night’ was clearly more suitable for my one-way street of masculine thought.
Where I came unstuck most often, however, was that while I never intended to get married until my thirties (after I had travelled extensively and rid my mind and body of my wanderlust and all other forms of lust they held), I always felt this need to ‘be in love’ with whomever I was dating at the time as opposed to needing to ‘be loved’ in return. There was no each-way wager about the filly I was backing. It was a one-way bet; win or lose! I was, in short, a hopeless romantic, attempting to match the irreconcilables of physically being close to a beautiful woman while maintaining enough emotional distance from her to take her mind off marriage!
I must confess to having been aided considerably in this objective by two important things, being a good dancer and a good kisser.
Whether I took the dance floor or the deepest breath I could, I was capable of ‘turning them wild’. Being a popular young man on the dance and dating scene, I could turn the heads of many a young woman whenever I entered their range of vision. I could also spin them like a top when we bopped to the fastest rock and roll record out at the time. I could always 'turn them on' at the end of the night when I escorted them back home. Early on in my dating life, I discovered the power of the carefully chosen word whether it was casually recited in poetic prose or sung in a gentle serenade. Let’s face it chaps, there isn’t a woman alive (Ice Maidens included) who will not melt when the romantic heat of the night is turned up!
The song I sing today reminds me of one of my most common sayings as teenager who was approaching manhood. Whenever I saw a young woman who looked stunning, I would turn to my mate, point to the young beauty in question and confidently proclaim, “She’s the one!”
I would make this bold statement with a degree of arrogance that suggested all I had to do was to ask and she would come running! Those were the days…and the nights…and the mornings after!
Love and peace Bill xxx