Soundbytes 1.8.25
Merilee
MOST OF THE SONGS IN THIS SERIES have at least a little truth behind them. Often it’s only a glimpse of a memory, maybe a regret, even an apology—probably too little too late. Did that really happen? Sometimes, after so many tellings, I’m not even sure myself.
Not that factual truth, if I’m honest, ever had all that much to do with most of these tunes in the first place. Songs about my first true flame or my grandmother Minnie Belle or my twin great-uncles Willie and Charlie only ever stuck as close to historical fact as it suited the lyric.
So, no, I never knew anyone named Merilee. I certainly never approached a pretty girl who had been abandoned, heartbroken on the dance floor, and talked her into slipping outside for a smoke. In my entire high school career, I went to only one dance. My date Ann Duttweiler fled to the girls’ side of the gym, where she huddled with her friends and giggled; I slunk over to the boys’ side and counted the minutes until my mother came to pick us up.
But really, in those days, I probably lived more in my imagination than in Dayton, Ohio, in my parents’ little brick bungalow with yellow shutters, a half-block from the bus stop and the enormous Dunleavy Plumbing sign. Usually, I was distracted, daydreaming, as my mother liked to point out. And still am.
Merilee, is that your name? Call me what you like tonight, it’s all the same.
Merilee
You are quite a looker I am quite alone Every guy on the dance floor Would like to take you home But something left you sad tonight Someone let you down Untied a promise of forever Don't you look so lonesome? You need a friend, I’ll bet I can do a step or two Counting in my head I can even listen to you If it comes to that Don’t need no promise of forever See the boy on bass guitar He’s a friend of mine I could introduce you if you’d Just stop crying If I can bum a cigarette We could step outside, but Just that, no promise of forever And when you’re tired of trying I could walk you home Or walk along behind you if you’d Rather be alone Bet your old man’s waiting up To run a third degree But not me, and no promise of forever Merilee Is that your name Call me what you like tonight It’s all the same And a goodnight kiss is only this Merilee Is that your name Call me what you like tonight It’s all the same And a goodnight kiss is only this No promise of forever No promise of forever No promise, Merilee
Philip Singer’s first chapbook, Natives (Chowder Press, Madison, WI) was followed by See Rock City (Gallimaufry Press, Bethesda, MD), poems first published in North American Review, Poetry Magazine, Swanee Review, Yale Review, Southern Poetry Review and other publications too obscure for even the author to remember. He also co-edited the regrettably short-lived New River Review (Radford, Virginia), with poet Charles L. Hayes, and Poetryfish (Norwich, Vermont), an online journal of poetry and fiction. Sun Tea, a serialized memoir first published here on Substack, appeared in 2022, with a couple of afterwords (Hey, kids, wait up!) in the years since.
Singer lives in Virginia with his wife Briah and their little gray wonder-dog, Maisie.


Nicely done, young man. You've put me in a state of reverie once again. It's much better than the state of being "present" these days.