Lines for Valentines

for soprano and piano

text by Anne Shelby
(1998) Duration: 3:00

PURCHASE

Performance by Jessica Bortz Schaap (soprano) and David George (piano)

In early 1998, I was planning how to proposed to Eva Morris when Line for Valentines arrived from my friend and collaborator, Anne Shelby (Waiting for Daylight). I thought it was perfect for a proposal and quickly composed a short song that I sang to Eva before proposing to her. My proposal version was a little simpler and without accompaniment, but this version captures the essence of that original version…delivered on the steps of the VFW hall overlooking the Ohio River on Valentines Day, 1998.

Lines for Valentines
by Anne Shelby

If you won’t be my valentine
The moon can’t glow. The stars can’t shine.
The corn won’t grow and the forks won’t tine
If you won’t be my valentine.

If you won’t be my valentine
I’ll hold my breath. I’ll pout. I’ll pine.
I’ll stomp and spit and swear and whine
If you won’t be my valentine.

If you won’t be my valentine
I’ll drink a pint of turpentine.
I’ll hang myself on a kudzu vine.
I’ll exhaust myself in nervous rhyme.
I’m liable to commit a crime
If you won’t be my valentine.

If you will be my valentine
On chocolate cherries we shall dine
And drink our fill of warm red wine
And not get up till half past nine

And step out light and dress up fine
And seek what’s silly and sublime
And we’ll be happy all the time.
If you will be my valentine.

Anne Shelby 2/14/98