Thom Moore lyrics and inspirations Big Love

BIG LOVE

What every mummy knows

is where the big love goes:

and when the cold winds blow,

that's time to let it show.

'Cause when the north wind blows

it's when the birds fly home, you know:

and any freeze or snow

is when the north wind blows.

Even when it's hard to sleep,

and storms outside will make you weep:

you're where the big love goes,

and that's what every mummy knows.

And when the south wind blows,

they say it comes from France, although

what every mummy knows is

that's the time to dance.

When winds come from the west

and time has come to rest a bit,

our mummy always knows

what time for that is best.

Even when it's hard to sleep,

and storms outside can make you weep:

you're where the big love goes,

and that's what every mummy knows.

When winds come from the east,

and smell like stormy seas,

we're tucked in tight, at least,

and mummy stays to read.

Even when it's hard to sleep,

and storms outside can make you weep:

you're where the big love goes,

and that's what every mummy knows.

What every mummy knows is

where the big love goes:

and when the stormy winds are blowing,

's when she'll let it show.

Sometimes people are sufficiently impressed by what I do that they commission me to write a song. This doesn’t happen very often, of course; but even when it does, I don’t regard the commission as any kind of cheapening of what I do as a songwriter. I never write about something that I don’t believe in, and I never turn over to the commissioner anything less than what pleases me, in every respect. More often, though, I’ll write a song because I think it will please someone. If it does, then I am doubly lucky. I’m thrice lucky if somebody asks me to write a song for them, or for someone: then I have to please, first, myself; then the person who asked; then the person or persons on whose behalf the request was made. I think I achieved all of those things in this song: a wonderful, energetic, and lovely neighbour of mine, named Frances Lane Burke, tried to tell me over the telephone one day in 2008 that something we had discussed on occasion, the cancer from which she thought she had recovered, had returned in full force … and she was not far from the end. At this point in the conversation, she asked me, emotionally, if I could write a song for her two daughters, whom she was raising in as musical a tradition as she could. She didn’t say it in so many words, but she was hoping I could create something that would help cement the bond between her and her soon-to-be-bereft girls. I did my best, but vicissitudes of various kinds kept me from producing anything more than a piece of sheet music for her daughters. I didn’t actually get to finish this version of the song until she had already gone. Her husband told me he was pleased with it, though … I only hope it is worthy of such a woman.