MUSIC FOR OCTOBER 2023
‘WATCHING YOU GO’
Experiencing loss, especially the loss of someone close, is different for each of us and the same for everybody. Seen objectively, some losses are crueler than others because of their scale, some irony in their circumstances or whatever other plot twist fate imposes. But for the people left behind, grief’s gears grind the same old way whatever the cause.
All of which hopefully sets some context for “Watching You Go,” written in 1995. What moved me to write it was the death of my cat Harry — but of course I did also realize that worse sorrows lay ahead, which the song tries to anticipate. (Not that one ever really can, as became clear to me in recent years with losing my parents and two close friends.)
The Boarders, with Gretchen Schaefer on bass and Jonathan Nichols-Pethick on drums, originated “Watching You Go.” (Later it appeared in the Howling Turbines repertoire.) This is a rehearsal recording from July 9, 1996, just prior to the Boarders’ final gig. — Doug Hubley
Hear “Watching You Go” below! Buy it on Bandcamp! (Photos by Jeff Stanton. Above: Cronies gather at Doug and Gretchen’s in 1989. From left: Liz Torraca, Jeri Chapman, Doug, Gretchen, Steve Chapman, Alden Bodwell and Ken Reynolds. Below: The Boarders were, from left, Doug, Jonathan Nichols-Pethick and Gretchen. “Watching You Go” copyright © 1996 by Douglas L. Hubley. All rights reserved.)
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