When I was 23, I went to Europe for the first time.

It was a great adventure and many of the highlights took place in Greece, where I have returned several times in the intervening years.

The morning I’m thinking of had to do with Socrates, the Greek philosopher.

I had read The Meno by Plato in which Socrates uses the illustration of “The Road to Larissa” to draw the distinction between knowledge and true opinion.

Okay, whatever…

But when I got to Greece, I just had to visit Larissa…on a kind of pilgrimage to a philosophical distinction.

When I arrived I noticed it was an undistinguished, dusty little Greek town. In other words it was gorgeous, lovely, heart stopping.

The first café I found had one patron sitting outside looking into the street, flipping his worry beads and breathing contentedly. I decided to go inside and have a coffee and relax my feet.

I took a seat in the spacious, cool dark empty room, the kind of place where men drink coffee and play
dominoes for hours.

The “patron” came in, and morphed into the proprietor. He asked me what I wanted. In my best Greek
I said, “Kaffay EllineekOH”.

He brought me the coffee, collected twenty two drachmas and took a seat in the other side of the café.

Then it hit me. One of those waves I talked about in an earlier post. I felt a song coming on, and I could hear it so clearly. It sounded like a cocktail pop song from the fifties.

And it was Tony Bennett singing it, of that there was no doubt. From the tone alone, I knew what it was all about.

I could hear Tony introducing it in the tone he used to introduce ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’.. on the record of his I used to have which included ‘Because of You’, ‘Cold Cold Heart’ and ‘The Shadow of Your Smile’.

“..here’s the story about a little
vixen that took my heart and stomped
into a million little pieces…”

That sort of thing.

So, I pulled out my trusty empty book – the kind you buy at art supply stores and started to write down the words.

The first verse rolled on out of my pen effortlessly:

Though you had a look of mischief
on your little baby face
How was I to know that you
were coming on?
Every thought I had of you
was so wholesome and true
Now all I know of love
is that it’s come and gone.

Then I looked up and it hit me like a ton of books.

The owner of the café was actively PRAYING for me. Or vibing for me. Or sending me immense mojo. He saw that someone was having an IDEA – in HIS little café — and he was thrilled, and was beaming love and support and encouragement to me with every nanotittle of his being.

I was moved deeply.. beyond any self consciousness or hesitation.

His eyes were saying, “Yes, go! I’m here for you. Grab the moment! Let’s do it!”

So I looked back down at the page — which I still have — and wrote the second verse:

You were quite a little teaser
when you said you’d fall in love
with the man who’d save to buy your diamond ring
Honey careful what you say
you could steal the heart away
from any fool who tries
to give you everything

And out rolled the chorus:

Genuine Ingenue
you were mine, but not true
you were sweet but not fair
close your eyes, die your hair

At first I could not figure out how to play it. My meager harmonic skills were not quite up to the
challenge. When I got back to Canada I asked my old girlfriend Roxanne’s boyfriend George to accompany me on the piano.

He figured it out right away and told me the chords.

This is another proof that chicky chacky is not the only way to write a song. I could not have
chicky chackeyed my way to this song with a guitar in hand.

Anyway, in time I got to play it with ‘The Angels of Montenegro’ in various clubs in Toronto.

The trumpet sounded great….very Coltrane on trumpetish. Sarah McElcheran really kicked the
crap out of this melody with the mute on.

I will have to do some more digging to find a good live version with band. There are a few. Meanwhile,
here’s me slumming it on my Martin Backpacker guitar.

Tom St. Louis
http://www.gmsiamovie.wordpress.com