I wrote this song a year ago for the love of my life, my wife Barbara. She is so selfless and giving of her energy to her family: calling her parents every Sunday night, treating our daughter-in-law like our daughter, the way she interacts so lovingly with our grandkids... and little things like making me a sandwich when I'm stressing out at work, and big things like putting together a big family dinner every week. We've been laughing and loving life together since 1987.

This song was started by pondering the difference between 'wonderful' and 'wonderous', which led to googling 'wonderful', which led to rapping over all the alphabetically listed synonyms ... and the premise of the song came to me. I wrote this during a stretch when two saxophone players were coming pretty regularly to the Skunk open mic, and I imagined a long intro with a sax wailing away for 5 minutes before the vocals even start. I did that with Chris Hoffman once before he left town and it was magical (at least for me).

This recording is from soon after I wrote the song, done one afternoon in mangobananas studios, West Windsor, VT. Recorded with computer-generated drums originally, with sampled bass and piano laid in to structure the song. Then I recorded acoustic guitar (tuned CGCFAD) and a single lead vocal. Later, the computer drum loops were replaced with long sections of Jon Morse going all Keith Moon from 'these days'.

Thanks for listening!

-Andy

wonderful

I told my wife the other day
"you're wonderful", and what did she say
"but what do you mean by wonderful?"
so I googled it

let's see: wonderful
part of speech: adjective
definition: great, extraordinary
that fits!

I meant that you're great
I meant that you're extraordinary
and most of these 42 synonyms also apply:


you're admirable, amazing,
astonishing, astounding
awe-inspiring, awesome, and brilliant

you're cool, divine, and dynamite
enjoyable and excellent
fabulous, fantastic, and fine

you're groovy and incredible
magnificent and marvelous
miraculous and so outstanding

you're peachy and phenomenal
pleasant, pleasing, and prime
remarkable, sensational, and something else

you're staggering and startling
strange and stupendous
super, superb, surprising, and swell

you're terrific, you're too much
you're tremendous, unheard-of
and absolutely wondrous


and that's what I meant
when I told you
you're wonderful

© Andy Wyatt
2 May 2013

P.S. This song evolved into "wonderful / merveilleuse" in December 2014. It'll be on my next studio album. In the meantime here are some videos of the new version played live:
B.O.'s Fishwagon in Key West (2018)
Main St Museum in White River Junction (2019)
Tim's Int'l Zoom (2021)