Thoughts of Departure

Song 633: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week's striking ballad Mind to Leave comes from one of my Berkeley cohorts Carol Denney, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Back in the fall of 1978, not long after I discovered the La Val's Pizza singer/songwriter circle that I soon joined, I got to hear Carol do a set, and I still remember some of the songs I heard that night, though she did not perform this one then. I quickly became a fan of Carol's music, as well as a few other members of the group, including Jim Bruno and Bob Nichols, and over the next few years, I would get to hear each of them pioneer a new composition at the pizza place. I think I got to hear Ms. Denney introduce this ramble one night there shortly after a visit to her family in L.A. She had grown up in southern CA, and we, her northern CA creative colleagues, could easily comprehend her having a Mind to Leave her home town. However, the lyric also takes a more disturbing direction. I had previously heard Carol unveil another remarkable ride that seemed to suggest experiencing depression, and though I didn't know much about the condition at the time, I did sense that it could give someone a Mind to Leave this life. For that reason, I had avoided adding this gem to the list until now, because I really don't want Carol to leave this life until necessary. She may have lost a lot of friends in some way, but when she asserts I'm not as entertaining, I strongly disagree with that line. On a side note, by the early years of the new millennium, I came to understand the basics of brain chemical imbalances that trigger disorders like depression, and I wrote a book called Expecting the Broken Brain to Do Mental Pushups - I hope to have my more-enlightened 2nd edition finished and released in a few months.