‘This Is What I Give . . .’

by whiteray

The atmospheric “Since You Asked” is the second track on Judy Collins’ hushed 1967 album Wildflowers. The album itself was part of the soundtrack of my mid- to late teen years, from the time my sister bought the album – probably in 1968, after Dad finished work on the basement rec room – to the time she took it with her on her newlywed way to a career in education in the summer of 1972. 

I couldn’t have told you the title of the track until it came to mind the other day, but as soon as I called it up on the RealPlayer, it was instantly familiar, pulling me back to adolescent reveries on the green couch in that basement rec room: 

What I’ll give you since you’ve asked
Is all my time together;
Take the rugged sunny days,
The warm and rocky weather,
Take the roads that I have walked along,
Looking for tomorrow’s time,
Peace of mind. 

As my life spills into yours,
Changing with the hours
Filling up the world with time,
Turning time to flowers,
I can show you all the songs
That I never sang to one man before. 

We have seen a million stones lying by the water,
You have climbed the hills with me
To the mountain shelter.
Taken off the days, one by one,
Setting them to breathe in the sun. 

Take the lilies and the lace
From the days of childhood,
All the willow winding paths
Leading up and outward.
This is what I give
This is what I ask you for;
Nothing more. 

After my sister headed out to adult life, I went about sixteen years without hearing the song except by accident. I found it in 1988 on Collins’ anthology, Colors Of The Day, and then found Wildflowers five years later. Even during a time of increased record-buying, the two Collins albums got fairly regular play as I drifted between North Dakota, Minnesota, Kansas and Missouri and back to Minnesota. 

In a seemingly unrelated event, I also picked up in 1988 an album by Dan Fogelberg and Tim Weisberg titled Twin Sons of Different Mothers, a 1978 piece of work that I’ve listened to occasionally but not with any great attention. 

So, until it was mentioned in a Facebook music group a couple months ago, I’d not realized that the track on the latter album titled “Since You’ve Asked” was actually Collins’ song. After reading the note at Facebook, I wandered off and found the track in the digital stacks and of course knew it immediately. The production – framed by piano, with some slight alterations in the lyrics – makes the tune fit nicely into Fogelberg’s catalog of sometimes spare and haunting songs: