Portions for Foxes: Shannon Worrell

"Portions for Foxes" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song by a woman or a band led by a woman. See the introduction for more.

I don't have enough happy love songs in this series, so, as the year's closing out, let me get one more in.

Well, it's mostly happy. No lives are completely happy, so there's some worries seeping in around the edges. But this is a song about making the most of right now, about being in love with someone you know well, about finding your joy where and when you have it.

It's C'mon Catherine by Shannon Worrell, from the 2008 record The Honey Guide.

It's another one of those songs obscure enough that I can't find lyrics online, so anything below is from my listening and typing and rewinding - possibly wrong, but, I hope, well-meant.

C'mon Catherine
Let's bossa nova in the afternoon
Winter will be here too soon

There's repeated mentions of ending, which might be just the general "end" - not of this relationship, or anything else major like that. Just that life is short, and enjoying it is what we have to do now.

Driving 220 in the snow
Listening to the radio
Made me promise not to see that other girl again

But maybe not - the singer is hearing "a September song." This might be a song about love about to be lost after all, for all my optimism. But, even if it is, even if something is time-limited and fragile, it can be beautiful and true and wonderful while it lasts. That's what this song says. And it has a fine fiddle behind Worrell's lovely expressive voice to do it, and a sound like a hills ballad you've been hearing all your life.

Growing grapefruit
Lemons and tiny tangerines
This is the most a life can mean
On the terrace in the sun
We ate every single one
That was another year I swore I'd never leave

In this season, I hope you all have things in your own life that make you feel that way, that this is the most a life can mean.