Tuesday, December 15, 2009

My Favorite Christmas tune?

Well, I am not really sure what it is about this song, but when they play it on the radio at Christmas time, it just gives me chills! Perhaps it is just the old familiar tune of Auld Lang Syne that is often played on New Year's Eve and helps set a mood for reminiscing and remembering years past, or maybe it is something from my own past that still "haunts" me. I think we all can relate in some way to this song's message. When I googled this song to learn more about it, I did find the following interesting information about the song and its writer, Dan Fogelberg:

"As Fogelberg tells it on his official website, the song is totally autobiographical. He was visiting family back home in Peoria, Illinois in the mid-'70s when he ran into an old girlfriend at a convenience store. After Fogelberg's death from prostate cancer in 2007, the woman who he wrote the song about came forward with her story. Her name is Jill Greulich, and she and Fogelberg dated in high school when she was Jill Anderson. As she explained to the Peoria Journal Star in a December 22, 2007 article, they were part of the Woodruff High School class of 1969, but went to different colleges. After college, Jill got married and moved to Chicago, and Dan went to Colorado to pursue music. On Christmas Eve, they were each back in Peoria with their families when Jill went out for egg nog and Dan was dispatched to find whipping cream for Irish coffee. The only place open was a convenience store at the top of Abington Hill, at Frye Avenue and Prospect Road, and that's where they had their encounter. They bought a six pack of beer and drank it in her car for 2 hours while they talked. Five years later, Jill heard "Same Old Lang Syne" on the radio while driving to work, but she kept quiet about it, as Fogelberg also refused to reveal her identity. Her main concern was that coming forward would disrupt Fogelberg's marriage. Looking at the lyrics, Jill says there are 2 inaccuracies: She has green eyes, not blue, and her husband was not an architect - he was a physical education teacher, and it's unlikely Fogelberg knew his profession anyway. Regarding the line, "She would have liked to say she loved the man, but she didn't like to lie," Jill won't talk about it, but she had divorced her husband by the time the song was released."

2 comments:

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  2. I LOVE that song. I never knew the story behind it, that's neat. I never understood why they played it at Christmas, it's not very Christmasy, lol.

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