The Luckiest
David is a dear friend, as is his wife, Amy and, by association, their two kids Phoebe and Lucas. I have attended parties at their house, had deep and meaningful conversations with each of them, watched the way they parent and love each other, and I have enjoyed spending time in the beautiful and truly unique home they have created – from the gigantic seawater aquarium in the middle of their living room to the view of the river that runs just beyond their back yard. Their home is soulful and playful and inviting and inclusive and filled with laughter and love.
When David told me he wanted to surprise Amy with a song for her 50th birthday, I was pretty over the moon. She is wild and creative; a spacious and vibrant human who makes breathtaking bold jewelry and mothers her children with such creative dedication. She has a laugh and a brightness that will absolutely fill a room--and all the hearts within that room.
When David told me he wanted to surprise Amy with a song for her 50th birthday, I was pretty over the moon. She is wild and creative; a spacious and vibrant human who makes breathtaking bold jewelry and mothers her children with such creative dedication. She has a laugh and a brightness that will absolutely fill a room--and all the hearts within that room.
So, yes! Absolutely. I will work with you, David, on creating a song for Amy. David came to my house and we spent a couple of hours really digging in. Easy, because I already know and love Amy. But also, so precious and memorable because I got to see a side of David I had never fully seen before. We reviewed the things we both knew—that Amy is one of those people who will reach out to anyone, and who does reach out to, literally, everyone she meets. Her heart is open and she is ready to love and to learn more. I knew a fair amount about her adventurous younger years, about David and Amy’s shared history--how they met a bit later in life, and how they fell into something big, and powerful. I didn’t know that sometimes they talked about their ancestors, and how it felt like somewhere back down the line they must surely have been related. Because they are so similar. And yet they are also very different—I can attest to this. Amy, I learned, has a workshop bursting to fullness with materials strewn all around. David plays things a little closer to the vest. He will think things through multiple times. He’s not exactly a worrier, but he is the kind of person who will do anything for you, having thought through exactly what he is going to do very carefully. He considers. He ponders.
And, pondering with me there on the couch in my living room, I started asking deeper questions, and he started responding with deeper answers. And before you knew it, his eyes were filled with tears. And so were mine. “I love her so much,” he said, becoming so beautifully overwhelmed by it that he had a hard time saying the words.
And, pondering with me there on the couch in my living room, I started asking deeper questions, and he started responding with deeper answers. And before you knew it, his eyes were filled with tears. And so were mine. “I love her so much,” he said, becoming so beautifully overwhelmed by it that he had a hard time saying the words.
In the writing studio, I did my very best to catch the sweep of what he was sharing, and create something that Amy would feel truly moved by when she heard it for the first time at her birthday party. (I have seen her at concerts of mine. She gets moved very easily and fully. So, in this way, perhaps she is an “easy mark!” but even so, I wanted to create something with David that went beyond “easy mark” and into bullseye territory. So, perhaps because of that, in one particular way, I think I went a different direction from what David was expecting. “Amy is lively, full of life, full gallop,” he said at the song interview. So, he told me, he could imagine a song that was filled with energy and life.
I hope you will find, dear reader, that this song is filled with life. But it is not the gallop David might have expected. I started many “gallop” versions of this song. They were good songs. Some quite promising. I think she would have liked them, and that he would have too. But this is not that song. The pull, over and over again, in my heart, and when I followed the tearing up of my own eyes, was the deep awe and love that I saw in David as we talked about Amy. What his heart was saying felt sacred. And filled with wonder. It felt like someone who feels things, but doesn’t always stop to fully notice that he is feeling them, but then, when he slows down enough to feel, is gently overcome by the beauty and depth of what appears within him.
That’s what happened, I think, for David, on the couch, as we were talking about his love for Amy--the things he would most want her to know, to hear, to feel, as she listened to her song. And that’s what happened for me too. I felt welled up with something beautiful and I slowed down my own gallop and in so doing, found it here in these lines of song, in these threads of melody, and love, and wonder.
When David came back to my house to hear the song, I had my fingers and toes crossed. You put all this heart and soul into a piece of work and you fall in love with it, and then the moment comes where the person who commissioned it has to tell you—Do they like it? Does it feel not-quite-right? Is it missing something? Is it close? Do you have to start over? Will they fall in love with it, just as you have?
I watched David out of the corner of my eye while I was playing it for him for the first time. I wanted to give him the space to hear whatever he heard and feel whatever he felt without feeling on display. But I saw it: the thing every songwriter hopes for. I saw it in his face. This was it. This was the song.
I performed it for him, on guitar, there in my office, three times. He loved it from the very first, but I am guessing he enjoyed it the most the third time, when I finally got control of my voice and was able to sing it without crying. He had three ideas for edits. They were miniscule. But fascinatingly, all three of them were…miraculous. “You are so good at this,” he told me. “You are so good at this,” I told him.
So here is the song, which David named The Luckiest. I hope it brings you joy. There is nothing quite like getting to see inside one person’s love for another. I got to be on the front lines of it, and it is a powerful thing, this Amy-David love. As I write this, she has not yet heard it. But I feel pretty safe in predicting that she will feel the fullness of what David put in there, which is all of his heart.
--Anna Huckabee Tull, February 6, 2024
I hope you will find, dear reader, that this song is filled with life. But it is not the gallop David might have expected. I started many “gallop” versions of this song. They were good songs. Some quite promising. I think she would have liked them, and that he would have too. But this is not that song. The pull, over and over again, in my heart, and when I followed the tearing up of my own eyes, was the deep awe and love that I saw in David as we talked about Amy. What his heart was saying felt sacred. And filled with wonder. It felt like someone who feels things, but doesn’t always stop to fully notice that he is feeling them, but then, when he slows down enough to feel, is gently overcome by the beauty and depth of what appears within him.
That’s what happened, I think, for David, on the couch, as we were talking about his love for Amy--the things he would most want her to know, to hear, to feel, as she listened to her song. And that’s what happened for me too. I felt welled up with something beautiful and I slowed down my own gallop and in so doing, found it here in these lines of song, in these threads of melody, and love, and wonder.
When David came back to my house to hear the song, I had my fingers and toes crossed. You put all this heart and soul into a piece of work and you fall in love with it, and then the moment comes where the person who commissioned it has to tell you—Do they like it? Does it feel not-quite-right? Is it missing something? Is it close? Do you have to start over? Will they fall in love with it, just as you have?
I watched David out of the corner of my eye while I was playing it for him for the first time. I wanted to give him the space to hear whatever he heard and feel whatever he felt without feeling on display. But I saw it: the thing every songwriter hopes for. I saw it in his face. This was it. This was the song.
I performed it for him, on guitar, there in my office, three times. He loved it from the very first, but I am guessing he enjoyed it the most the third time, when I finally got control of my voice and was able to sing it without crying. He had three ideas for edits. They were miniscule. But fascinatingly, all three of them were…miraculous. “You are so good at this,” he told me. “You are so good at this,” I told him.
So here is the song, which David named The Luckiest. I hope it brings you joy. There is nothing quite like getting to see inside one person’s love for another. I got to be on the front lines of it, and it is a powerful thing, this Amy-David love. As I write this, she has not yet heard it. But I feel pretty safe in predicting that she will feel the fullness of what David put in there, which is all of his heart.
--Anna Huckabee Tull, February 6, 2024
The Luckiest
For Amy on Your 50th Birthday
Who are you to me
And who am I to be
The Luckiest?
What a world this is
Where something just like this, you and me
Could be, Amy
It’s so unlikely you’re so much wilder than me
I hold so tight and you scatter all the seeds
You reach your heart out wide open to everyone, anyone
Then when you turn back around, so improbably
You’re looking at me
You’re looking at me
So, who am I to you
What good things did we do for you and me to be
The luckiest?
And who was born before us
Backward in time like a chorus
Of voices and love from beyond and above
So that we could meet
And feel and fall
And see
Oh, Love, I see
It’s so amazing you’re so much wilder than me
I hold you tight and you scatter all the seeds
You reach your heart out wide open to everyone, anyone
Then when you turn back around, so beautifully
You’re looking at me
You’re looking at me
And you’re so brave and tenacious
Creative and spacious
You love with your whole wild heart, and you
Expand who I am, you expand who I am
Do you know, do you see?
How you, Amy, make me
The luckiest, the luckiest
© 2024 Anna Huckabee Tull, CustomCraftedSongs.com
For Amy on Your 50th Birthday
Who are you to me
And who am I to be
The Luckiest?
What a world this is
Where something just like this, you and me
Could be, Amy
It’s so unlikely you’re so much wilder than me
I hold so tight and you scatter all the seeds
You reach your heart out wide open to everyone, anyone
Then when you turn back around, so improbably
You’re looking at me
You’re looking at me
So, who am I to you
What good things did we do for you and me to be
The luckiest?
And who was born before us
Backward in time like a chorus
Of voices and love from beyond and above
So that we could meet
And feel and fall
And see
Oh, Love, I see
It’s so amazing you’re so much wilder than me
I hold you tight and you scatter all the seeds
You reach your heart out wide open to everyone, anyone
Then when you turn back around, so beautifully
You’re looking at me
You’re looking at me
And you’re so brave and tenacious
Creative and spacious
You love with your whole wild heart, and you
Expand who I am, you expand who I am
Do you know, do you see?
How you, Amy, make me
The luckiest, the luckiest
© 2024 Anna Huckabee Tull, CustomCraftedSongs.com