Story Behind The Song

I spent a year after college living in Sausalito, just north of San Francisco. I liked someone named Tina and wrote this song to serenade her. Not my best lyrics, but I was quite proud of the way I was able to turn the last syllable of each verse into the first syllable of the next verse (withhold/hold, monsoon/soon). The guitar work in the instrumental break is as close as I ever get to playing jazz.

Song Description

A shy man uses a song to express his feelings for a woman he likes.

Lyrics

Sausalito night, the right time, the perfect scene
if I can find a way to
tell you how I feel, unreal, like I'm seventeen

Tina is your name, the same as no other dame
that I can quite relate to.
Now you're in my heart, a part from a jigsaw game.

Come into my room, and loom like a vision,
near, while I compose what I must.
Things I'd like to say, and maybe you'd like to hear.

Sausalito night, a tight situation, cold.
I'm shivering, feeling queasy.
Sure is hard to bring this thing up and then withhold.

Hold me in your arms, disarm me with all your charms
and make the words come easy,
'cause I'm on the spot, as hot as a four-alarm.

Be a little girl, unfurl all your midnight hair,
and let it shine like August.
Open up your eyes, surprise me and say you care.

Sausalito night, the light from a distant moon
is peeking through my window.
Rain upon the ground, the sound of a fall monsoon.

Soon it comes along, your song -- it is finally through,
so listen to the wind blow.
Throw away the time, the rhyme and the meter, too.

And do you know by now, just how much that I like you?
Said, do you know by now, just how much that I like you?