I wrote this song when I was 18 or 19, making it one of the earliest songs included on this site. At the time I was doing volunteer work for Broadside magazine, which published new songs. I was there every day, and really did a lot of the grunt work in putting the very simple magazine together, including notating songs (which was surprising since I had no training in doing that other than what rubbed off from my remarkably musical Rail friends). As a result, they invited me to sing at a couple of their hoots, which happened monthly at The Village Gate. I was writing social protest songs mainly at the time, and I sang one at a hoot emcee’d by Pete Seeger. When I finished and went back to sit down, Pete had the seat next to me and put his arm around me. But it was at the other hoot, emcee’d by Julius Lester, that I sang this song. I had already sung once, but there was still time and Julius looked around for volunteers. I raised my hand and he picked me. I had my 12-string with me, and this song was meant for a 6-string so I asked another performer, Janice Ian (going by her real name, Fink, at the time) if I could borrow her guitar. I sang the song, it was well received, and afterwards a photographer came over to me and said he had a good shot of me that he was going to send me, and also suggesting that I should forget about the social protest songs and concentrate on songs like this that contained a more personal message. Which, of course, is what I did. That photograph, which I lost to my never-ending regret, was the last good photo ever taken of me.
Lyrics
Leaving With The River
Once by a river a small boy did stroll
His feet wore the muddy silt like shoes
He sang songs of promise to the great river’s roll
And listened to the river’s soothing blues
But the sea glistened briefly
Beyond the distant bends
Where the river left its bank
To go rolling without end
And the boy whispered his only thought
To his only friend
I’m leaving with you, river, in the morning
He fashioned him a boat of the hickory and the oak
And set it to the river by the bay
And from the lanky birchbark he cut his craft a cloak
To shed the windy gusts of surf and spray
But the currents of the river
That traveled far below
Resented this intruder
Who broke the water’s flow
And his words they echoed briefly
As he tottered to and fro
I’m leaving with you, river, in the morning
He climbed to the top and he slid to the depths
The boat split and splintered in his hand
He had sailed to the end of a young boy’s stream
To drown in the ocean of a man
Now the water lies unbroken
In the sunset’s striking reds
The boughs that he once sailed upon
Now float over his head
As a brook still trickles hopefully
Into the river bed
For it’s leaving with the river in the morning.