I first met Betsy Ahearn when she auditioned for The Fifth of July which I was directing for Centre Stage in the Bronx. She was very pretty and vivacious but it was her talent that blew me away. I quickly developed a crush on her (I was twice her age, it was kinda silly) which she didn’t reciprocate at all, but she enjoyed my company enough that we hung out a fair amount for awhile, going to shows both locally and in the city. This song is unfair to her insofar as she never flirted with me or in any way led me to believe she was interested in me. But the song worked better with that element so that’s what I wrote. She was known for her predilection for blueberry muffins and tea. I’m reasonably certain I never played this song for her. But on the somewhat infrequent occasions when I perform, I always include this song and it is always the tune people best remember. I think it’s my finest song. Betsy is on the top of my list of people I hope to see once more before I die.
Lyrics
Blueberry Muffins and Tea
Saw her in the parking lot she was walking through the gate
She was sipping tea, and on a paper plate
A blueberry muffin from a health food store upstate
I think that’s all she ever ate
We talked awhile and then I asked her up to tea
She bent her head, her eyes met mine, she smiled suggestively
Looking back I wonder now, just who did she see
It wasn’t me, obviously
Blueberry muffins and tea
For cooks like me that’s easy as can be
I popped them in the oven and waited patiently
She said for sure that she’d be by by three
For her blueberry muffins and tea
Now I had heard about that guy she loved before
The one who broke her heart a hundred times or more
And how when he needed her she was always at his door
Guess if it hurts that’s love for sure
But the way I look at it her choice is really clear
She can listen to this troubled soul just crying in his beer
Or she can have muffins and tea with me, year after year after year
It’s half past nine, she still isn’t here
Blueberry muffins and tea
That’s all she said she wanted there to be
But as I wrapped them for the freezer, I could clearly see
She never wanted them to come from me
Not her blueberry muffins and tea
The heart’s a lonely hunter, at least that’s what they say
Beating through the barren brush day after day
And in turn you just get burned if you ever really catch your prey
Hey, you’d never catch me acting that way
She dropped by to apologize, it sounded kind of forced
But I said, anyhow let’s make up now for the time we lost
Just a half an hour and these muffins will defrost
But she had other plans of course
Blueberry muffins and tea
I mean we’re not talking salmon mousse and brie
Butter, flour, honey and eggs, and of course the blueberries
Guess you can’t teach old cooks new recipes
For making blueberry muffins and tea
Blueberry muffins and tea
For a sad-eyed, shipwrecked, love-lost refugee
But although her heart was hungry from being many years at sea
Her appetite could never sated be
By my blueberry muffins and tea.