Anyone who has known me for any length of time should know that Erasure has longtime been an obsession of mine. Each Christmas I repeatedly play “She Won’t Be Home”, and this year I blog about it too. 🙂
A little background. Enthusiasm started for me around 1990, with Yaz’s (Yazoo’s) “Situation”, a favorite song and extremely popular. I followed Vince back to the start of Depeche Mode more, where “Just Can’t Get Enough” was a favorite, and true for me, I could not get enough. Then I followed Vince to Andy in Erasure and put a name, or actually paid closer attention, to songs “Chains of Love” and “A Little Respect”. I bought a few albums, found “Hideaway”, and I was hooked. Erasure was my new obsession.
I started going to record shops, trying to put my hands on every erasure single, EP, Promo, bootleg, or album. I could not get enough. I joined the “eis” erasure information service (OS-349) fan club where I learned of where to get more records overseas. I spent so much money and now have a quite decent collection of vinyl, limited editions, some very rare.
Through the eis I met many other fans through a pen pal program that the service orchestrated. Two pen pals became good friends, still to this day. Fredrik Augustsson in Sweden and Peter Roebuck in England. We wrote so many letters. And long! I can’t write for any length of time today before my hand is aching. These friends taught me so much, mostly that the world is not limited to my backyard. Pete came to visit me first, years before I met Jimmy, and then I stayed a week at his house with his family in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. Was that ever a learning experience. Years later, Fred and his partner Hasse came to visit us when we lived in Philly. Good times. Fred and I still keep in touch on Facebook, but I don’t think Pete even has a computer.
She Won’t Be Home has always been a favorite song of mine. Andy’s voice and the synth-pop melody from Vince. From the beginning horn melody throughout, just beautiful beautiful music. If you pay attention to the lyrics it is quite sad, but with an upbeat tempo – genius! Looking online, I learned this song was WDRE’s “Shriek of the Week” December 2, 1988. Also, this song is considered a “Non Appearing Title” in the music world, as a song where the title is not found in the lyrics of the song, causing this song to be incorrectly labeled “Lonely Christmas” or “He Won’t Be Near”.
She looks around
There are snowflakes on the ground
Here comes another lonely Christmas
Stars in the night
There is one there shining bright
Shine bright for me this lonely Christmas
-Chorus:
And I wanted to say to you
How much I want to be with you
I wanted to say to you
How much I need to be with you
Christmas time comes once a year
She knows this time he won’t be near
She phones her mom
Says this time she cannot come
Don’t worry I’m with friends this Christmas
Dad gets upset
But in time he soon forgets
Here comes another lonely Christmas
Chorus
Chorus to fade
