Smithers-Greene

This song sums up how I feel about meeting my life partner, Andy, five years ago this weekend.

The song is “Lucky To Be Me” by Leonard Bernstein from the musical On The Town. The lyrics (edit: by Betty Comden & Adolph Green) are:

I used to think it might be fun to be
Anyone else but me.
I thought that it would be a pleasant surprise
To wake up as a couple of other guys.
But now that I’ve found you,
I’ve changed my point of view,
And now I wouldn’t give a dime to be
Anyone else but me.

What a day,
Fortune smiled and came my way,
Bringing love I never thought I’d see,
I’m so lucky to be me.
What a night,
Suddenly you came in sight,
Looking just the way I’d hoped you’d be,
I’m so lucky to be me.
I am simply thunderstruck
At the change in my luck:
Knew at once I wanted you,
Never dreamed you’d want me, too.
I’m so proud
You chose me from all the crowd,
There’s no other guy I’d rather be,
I could laugh out loud,
I’m so lucky to be me.

A few notes on my performance: I know I have affectations in my singing and acting. I don’t know how to get rid of them. I feel like a parody of myself. And I know my pitch isn’t perfect. This was the 11th take, and there’s only so much time I can spend on this. There are other ways I can show my love for Andy, such as helping to pack for our camping trip this weekend.

I’m not saying this because I’m anticipating anyone’s criticism, and I’m not saying it to fish for compliments. I’m just saying it because it may be what’s holding me back in my performance, and I need to get over it. It’s more important for me to share this song the best I can sing it for now than to wait until I’m perfectly satisfied with it. I’ve been planning to sing this song, recorded it, and share it on the web for weeks now, and I won’t let my imperfection stop me.

Families Can Be Together Forever

Originally uploaded by Daniel Greene.

This is dedicated to a colleague’s son who died suddenly last week at the age of 4. I attended his funeral at a Mormon church yesterday. The first order of service was singing a hymn called “Families Can Be Together Forever” whose lyrics resonated with me, a gay Jewish man:

“I have a family here on earth.
They are so good to me.
I want to share my life with them
Through all eternity.
Families can be together forever
Though Heavenly Father’s plan.
I always want to be with my own family
And the Lord has shown me how I can.”

(Words: Ruth Muir Gardner, Music: Vanja Y. Watkins)

It is interesting that I heard this song the day after watching the movie Juno and being struck by a line spoken by Ellen Page’s character: “I just need to know that two people can be happy and stay together forever.”

I do believe they can, and it doesn’t matter what religion or sexual preference they are. My grandparents were married for over 64 years before my grandmother died. Andy & I married for life. We’ll be married four years in August, and we intend to stay together “forever” (on the question of life after death, I’m agnostic). In the short time that Andy & I have been together, we’ve seen couples comes and go. But we’ve also known couples, both gay and straight, who have been together for decades. So, although families don’t always stay together forever, they can, and I dedicate this image to the little boy who brought me to a moving reminder of that truth. The little boy loved bubble gum, so that’s what I used to spell out the word Families on our neighbor Elva’s green grass lawn.

Here are a couple of valuable links I came across when searching for the lyrics to this song:

1. The sheet music on the LDS Church Website.
2. The perspective of an LDS woman who taught primary school yet grew up in a broken home. It’s called When Families Aren’t Forever.

Andy received a link to this YouTube video this morning, and I was so happy to see it. Our friends who got married last weekend are going to adopt, and Andy and I have talked about it. Here’s to all those kids who have two fathers, and to all those male couples with children! A marvelous Dutch video with English subtitles:

In commemoration of our two-year wedding anniversary, I published a video of myself singing a song I wrote for Andy last Valentine’s Day. (I put this on YouTube on our anniversary, August 8, but I’m just getting around to blogging about it here now.)