Walking beside you, I never got the walking blues

Kate McGarrigle died yesterday, from cancer at age 64.
She performed with her sister Anna as the McGarrigle Sisters, issuing a handful of albums whose grooves I'd worn thin by the time I had to rebuy them as CDs.

Their skilled yet unfaceted singing voices unshackled mine.

Their music was an essential scaffold for my relationship with MyGuy. When we shared a laugh over "First Born Son," we recognized kindred spirits.

"The Walking Song" was our theme as we grew to know each other back and forth on the Lakeshore Path. I've sung it thousands of times (a few outside the shower!) and I remembered almost every line just now:

Wouldn't it be nice to walk together
Baring our souls while wearing out the leather
We could talk shop, harmonize a song
Wouldn't it be nice to walk along

I'll show you houses of architectural renown
Some are still standing, some have fallen down
Farm houses buried under Canada's snow
Spanish villas on the Boulevards of Mexico

And I'll learn to tell the ash from the oak
And if you don't know I won't make no joke
We'll climb to the top to view the world from above
Or carve our initials in the trunk like teenagers in love

And when we get hungry we'll stop to eat
Gotta think of our stomachs and rest our feet
If we get thirsty we'll have a drink or two
In a mountain top bar with a mountain top view

And when we get tired we'll stop to rest
And if you still want to talk you can bare your breast
If it's winter and cold we'll take a rooming-house room
If it's summer and warm we'll sleep under the moon

And we'll talk about the sports we played
'Bout the time you got busted or the time I got laid
We'll talk blood and how we were bred
Talk about the folks both living and dead

This song like this walk I find hard to end
Be my lover or be my friend
In sneakers or boots or regulation shoes
Walking beside you I'll never get the walking blues.