“Magnolia”

“The man had first heard ‘Magnolia’ as a twenty-two-year-old. After taking a spur-of-the-moment van ride to New Orleans, with friendly Cajuns he had just met that night, he found himself reclining, eyes closed, on a lounge chair in the backyard of a small house in that mysterious city. And there he met “Magnolia.” The song immediately became, and remained for the rest of his life, the exemplar of tender love songs. Cale whispered the song to the absent lady. Wistfulness, so powerful that it broke the listener’s heart, emerged from its every line. ‘Whippoorwill’s singing / Soft summer breeze / Makes me think of my baby / I left down in New Orleans.’ With the song’s first line, the artist captured his audience in the evocative imagery of the Big Easy. One heard the song of the whippoorwill (whose name imitated its call) and felt the humid caress of the gentle summer wind. And one felt the man’s deep sadness as he contemplates his true love, whom he left down in New Orleans. The name “Magnolia” evoked the fragile beauty and intoxicating perfume of the girl. So sweet is she that her absence drives him mad. He yearns to rejoin her, for she is the best he ever had, truly, the best he ever had. Cale describes how she whispers good morning, so softly in his ear, and promises that he’s coming home to her soon.”