(I remember being brought to tears by...

FOR REAL
(Bob Franke)
As recorded by Bob Franke on "Fast Folk Musical Magazine (Vol. 2, No. 4)" (1985)

Death took the husband of a neighbor of mine on a highway with a drunk at the wheel.
She told me: "Keep your clean hands off the laundry he left, and don't tell me you know how I feel."
She had a tape that he'd sent her from a Holiday Inn, and she never played it much in the day,
But when I heard him say he loved her through the window at night, I just stayed the hell away.

CHORUS: There's a hole in the middle of the prettiest life; so the lawyers and the prophets say.
Not your father nor your mother nor your lover's gonna ever make it go away;
And there's too much darkness in an endless night to be afraid of the way we feel.
Let's be kind to each other, not forever but for real.

My father never put his parachute on in the Pacific back in World War II.
He said he'd rather go down in familiar flames than get lost in that endless blue.
And some of that blue got into my eyes and we never stopped fighting that war
Until I first understood about endlessness and I loved him like never before. CHORUS

It's lucky that my daughter got her mother's nose, and just a little of her father's eyes;
And we've got just enough love that when the longing takes me, well, It takes me by surprise;
And I remember that longing from my highway days, though I never could give it a name.
It's lucky I discovered in the nick of time that the woman and the child aren't to blame...

CHORUS: For the hole in the middle of a pretty good life; I only face it 'cause it's here to stay.
Not my father nor my mother nor my daughter nor my lover nor the highway made it go away;
And there's too much darkness in an endless night to be ashamed of the way I feel.
I'll be kind to my loved ones, not forever but for real.

Some say that God is a lover, some say it's an endless void.
Some say both, and some say she's angry, and some say he's just annoyed;
But if God felt a hammer in the palm of his hand, then God knows the way we feel,
And love lasts forever, forever and for real.

Love lasts forever.