Let the Night Come On
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Submitter Comments
I wrote “Let the Night Come On” after finding out that a man we had sung to for months at Coming Home Hospice had died. “Buzz” was a strong , independent man who had lost his voice, his mobility, his choices about how to live his life. We got to know his wife and some of his history and had made special effort each week to try to comfort him with short, quiet, harmony-filled songs. One night as we were leaving our rehearsal at Coming Home, his wife and two sons approached me and, by the look on her face, I knew what had happened. I hugged her wordlessly and went out into the clear, blue- black night with its stars and moon paradoxically glowing so brightly, cheerfully. I thought I could feel Buzz traveling toward a different kind of dawn and I wished him peace—safe, eternal, cloudless peace. I drove home and the song appeared.
Lyrics
Let the night come on, deep in that blue-black sky
With the sliver of moon and a star hung high.
There’s a path up there toward a diff’rent dawn
And the clouds slip by, let the night come on.