Sugar Heart

SUGAR HEART

Sue taught Sunday School
Had freckles and green eyes
Bob called her his sweetheart
And promised her blue skies
He carried her through the doorway
Of a red brick bungalow
And soon a little head appeared
In the picture window

And their daughter used to
Stand in the window
Waiting for her daddy to come home

Bob was good at pool
He had handsome dark brown eyes
But he lost himself to liquor
And tripped up on some lies
It was not a happy ending
For this real life fairytale
'Cause heroes never spend a night
In the Brown Street Jail

And their daughter used to
Stand in the window
Waiting for her daddy to come home

Alone in the kitchen
On a night so cold and still
Sue shaped a little heart
Out of some sugar she had spilled

She hardly touched her coffee
As she waited through the night
Her daughter by the window
Knew that something wasn't right
Though her Camelot dissolved
Sue would not be giving up
There would be another suitor
To fill her empty cup

And their daughter used to
Stand in the window
Waiting for her daddy to come home

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When I was a kid my mother enrolled me in the Anglican Sunday school. It was a quaint church on Main Street in Milton Ontario. They would project the lyrics to "God Sees the Little Sparrow Fall" and "Onward Christian Soldiers" on a screen and have us sing before teaching us the stories of Jesus. It was around 1964 and I was 11; hair slicked up and wearing a blue blazer. After Sunday school we would go to Marg's Restaurant and my younger brother would sit with his Sunday school teacher, Bonny, and have toast. Bonny was married to my older brother Bob.

Every time I went to Marg's Restaurant I would ask what flavors of ice cream they had, despite the fact they were all listed on the wall. The waitress would tell me all the flavors; then I would ask, "What's special of the month?" She would tell me, and I would think very carefully and say, "I'll have vanilla." I did this same routine every week, and always paused a long time before requesting vanilla. I wasn't that fond of vanilla, but felt it was necessary as part of the gag.

I was a Smart Alec Kid, but not as bad as my younger brother. Nevertheless, I was an expert at burping incessantly. I burped incessantly during Sunday school class. This got me kicked out of the church. The minister himself came to the class and escorted me out. This was my first and last meeting with the minister. In spite of this "God Sees the Little Sparrow Fall" is still one of my favorite hymns.

Bob and Bonny were married and moved into a yellow brick bungalow on Kingsliegh Court. The house faced the road just as it turned, so looking out the window you could see a car driving towards the house, and it could pull directly into the driveway without making a turn. Bob and Bonny soon had a baby girl, and when the girl stood up she would stand in the picture window. Often she would stand in the window waiting for her daddy to come home. I can recall walking to their house and seeing her little head in the window. I was told that she always looked in the window, "Waiting for her daddy to come home."

I started writing a song about the girl in the window in the spring of 1973, just after returning from Europe. At that time my brother and his wife were going through a divorce. I visited Bonny and sat with her in the kitchen having a coffee. She had spilled some sugar on the table and had shaped the grains neatly into a little heart. She told me would never be getting back together with my brother.

I called the song "Sugar Heart."