Tunesday : More Than I Can Say

More Than I Can Say

(Allison, Jerry/Curtis, Sonny) Performed by Leo Sayer

Oh oh yea yea

I love you more than I can say 
I'll love you twice as much tomorrow
Oh love you more than I can say 

Oh oh yea yea

I miss you ev'ry single day 
Why must my life be filled with sorrow 
Oh love you more than I can say 

Don't you know I need you so 
Tell me please I gotta know 
Do you mean to make me cry 
Am I just another guy 

Oh oh yea yea

I miss you more than I can say
Why must my life be filled with sorrow 
Oh love you more than I can say 

Oh don't you know I need you so 
So tell me please I gotta know 
Do you mean to make me cry 
Am I just another guy 

Oh oh yea yea

I love you more than I can say 
I'll love you twice as much tomorrow 
Oh love you more than I can say 

I love you more than I can say 
I love you more than I can say (more than I can say)

I love you twice as much tomorrow (more than I can say)
I love you twice as much tomorrow

(More than I can say) I love you more than I can say
(More than I can say) I love you more than words can say yeah

When I was in grade six or seven, I got a Fred Flinstone-head-shaped a.m. radio for Christmas and I went to sleep every night with it under my pillow, listening to the Top 40 hits on Toronto's 1050 CHUM radio station. Long before Much Music or MTV made music a visual artform, a relatively unattractive singer like Leo Sayer was able to imprint on my mind what romantic really sounds like and More Than I Can Say was definitely one of my early favourites (followed closely by his When I Need You, but that wasn't still on the Top 40 by the time I was sleeping with Fred.)

Writing about some old friends last week, I mentioned that Timmy was my elementary school boyfriend and I may as well spill the beans on him. I believe our on-again/off-again "romance" started in grade four. Timmy had someone pass me a note that said, "Will you go with me?" I was startled -- where did this come from? -- and I decided to play dumb and answered, "Go where?" Timmy replied with, "You know, will you GO WITH ME?" Feeling pressured, like I had no time to decide whether or not I even liked Timmy like that, yet also happy to have been asked, this time I replied, "Yes".

Timmy was always the tallest boy in the class and he had dark hair and a nice face; I wish I had a picture to remember him by now. Were his eyes brown or blue? He was athletic and popular, and what I remember most about him, was that he was a talented artist, able to draw amazing likenesses even at our young age. I once wrote here about how our grade six teacher parachuted me in as a candidate in a mock election we were having, and Timmy worked hard as my campaign manager; we were a good team.

Back to grade four. Sometimes, Timmy and I would hold hands at recess, but it obviously wasn't like dating -- we were 10 or so, and we didn't talk on the phone or even spend many recesses together. One day, some older kids spread the word that "couples" were invited to meet by this huge oak tree that was right on the edge of school property, and Timmy and I went to check it out. These big kids said that it was a kissing tree, and they would keep a watch out for teachers for anyone who wanted to go kiss behind it. Timmy and I shrugged and took our turn, kissing until we were told our time was up; more going through the motions of kissing than feeling compelled to keep at it. This would have been my first kiss, but being so young, it's hard to say that it counts (but I totally thought of it whenever Leo Sayer came on the radio...oh oh yea yea). One day, the big kids told us that real couples rolled around on the ground while they kissed, so we did that too, but it was really just a game to us. 

Timmy and I would be going out or not going out over the next few years, and whenever we weren't "together", neither of us was with anyone else either. In the story I wrote about last week (where I was sitting at Timmy's desk and nearly left him a regrettable note), we must have been in an "on-again" period because he was on vacation in Bermuda at the time and he brought me back a shell choker. I loved that necklace -- it was just so cool (during the era of Bo Derek's 10) -- and it came as a big surprise: Jewellery! From a boy! Still, even though we were older now, you couldn't have called this "dating" as we never saw each other -- or even talked to each other -- outside of school. I do remember a dance at the end of grade seven, and maybe necking during Stairway to Heaven at the end of the night, but then it was summer and I had to wait until September before I saw Timmy again; decide then if we were still on-again.

But Timmy didn't come back. Over the summer Timmy was transferred to a different school for bullying another boy in our class, and as the bullying only happened on their school bus, this was all a big shock to me. I want to insert another story here: The bullying victim, Paul, was a runty little freckle-faced redhead (and I say that as a redhead; as the big sister of another bullied runty little freckle-faced redheaded boy) who, while definitely not one of the popular boys, was always manic; always hanging with the popular boys and trying to impress them with jokes and gags; including trying to impress Timmy. Once, in grade six, during an indoor lunch hour when it was raining outside, and with the teacher stepped out, and with the class going a little bit stir crazy, Paul pulled down my track pants and ran off screaming in laughter. This was the only time this had ever happened to me, and it was also the only time that I was, for some reason, wearing nylons instead of underwear. What are the odds? The nylons made the pants slide easily to my knees, which I immediately pulled back up, and even though they had a dark coloured panty area, I have no idea what anyone might have seen in that split second of exposure. That was horrifying for me, and when I heard that Paul had been the victim of years of bullying, I'm afraid I wasn't very sympathetic; I may not have heard of karma at twelve-years-old, but I understood the feeling of cosmic justice.

So Timmy wasn't around for our last year of elementary school, but through a stroke of fate, we went to his new school to take shop and home ec in grade eight. As I was a thoroughly 70s product, I was one of several girls who demanded to be able to take wood shop. Sometimes I would see Timmy in the halls of this school and it would give me a jolt; sometimes I would see his name written in pencil on the bottom of projects that were left to dry in the shop and I would run my fingers over his work, sighing that we were being kept apart. We were star-crossed like Romeo and Juliet, oh oh yea yea.

Near the end of grade eight, Timmy got word to me (through some of the guys in our class) that he would be allowed to come to our graduation but not stay for the dance, and he wanted me to meet with him. I was kind of nervous to see him again; it was pretty awkward that the last time we were face to face had involved kissing and then nothing for a year. But with this message coming through the guy-to-guy grapevine, I got the impression that Timmy had something important to say to me.

On the evening of grad, there was a ceremony, and awards and diplomas were given out, and then parents went home and the kids left the gym while the teachers cleared the chairs for our dance. I felt really nervous, and even though Timmy kept trying to catch my eye, I played dumb, like I couldn't see him. Eventually, once we were away from teachers and parents, Timmy was able to block me, and asking Cora if he could talk to me privately, he led me away, to behind one of the portables. I was just so nervous, not able to look Timmy in the eye, and finally blurted out, "Okay, here we are. What do you want?"

Timmy moved in real close and said, "I just want you to kiss me."

We were no longer 10-year-olds, this was not the kissing tree, and with an elementary school diploma in my possession, I didn't feel like a little kid any more. This didn't feel like playing. I hadn't talked to Timmy in a year. I said, "And what if I don't feel like kissing you?" But I did. I hadn't ever kissed anyone else and it had been a year.

Timmy put his face beside mine and said, "Then maybe I'll kiss you anyway."

"Then maybe I'll scream." Isn't that what girls were supposed to say? I still wanted to kiss Timmy, but I wasn't going to be forced into it, and I started to look around to see if there was anyone near enough to even hear me if I did scream.

At that exact moment, my big brother Ken came walking around the corner of the portable. He would have been out juvenile delinquenting somewhere -- he certainly hadn't been at my graduation earlier -- and he took one look at the situation and said, "Everything okay here?"

I said, "Yep, I was just going in to the dance. Good seeing you again Timmy. Take care." 

And that was my first love. We were in high school together the following September, and I don't remember talking to him even once. We moved to Alberta the next year, and of course, I never saw Timmy again. What must it be like to live in one place for your whole life? To happen to bump into your first love; to smile and blush and remember the kissing tree as you watch him pulling into McDonald's with his family? 

Oh oh yea yea