Chasin’ Jason
Here’s to memories of mothers.
I had been writing for Barbra Streisand’s company for a while, and one day she told me she was going to have a baby, and she asked if I could I write a song for the occasion.
“Of course,” I said. “When are you going to have it?” I asked, expecting some mild equivocation.
“Christmas Eve,” she said, never a doubt.
On a lark, I asked her if it was going to be a boy or girl.
“A boy,” she said. Again, do doubt.
I smiled and wondered aloud if she’d thought of a name for him.
“Jason,” she said.
There obviously would be no need to write a song in which “Jason” might be substituted by “Mary,” or “Heather,” or what have you.
The first thing I had ever written for Streisand was “The Minute Waltz,” whose complicated lyrics to Chopin’s famous piano piece she did with great humor and success, and so I thought I would try the trick again-this time using a melody of my own, an old fashioned jazz piano piece with lots of notes, which would again give me the opportunity to write tongue-twisting, funny words. I called it, “Chasin’ Jason.”
It was a beast to learn to play and sing, and, although I had written it, it took me four days of heavy practice before I would even attempt to present it.
Having arranged the audition, I had second thoughts, and hastily wrote a backup song. Always have a net to land on when you fall from the high wire, and I knew I wouldn’t get a second chance at this opportunity. Fully armed then, I went to her apartment and, sitting at her piano, I gave “Chasin’ Jason” my best shot.
She did not leap around the room screaming “Wow!” In fact, I don’t remember her reacting in any way. And so, the wind out of my sails, I played her, “The Best Gift.”
“Oh, I’ll do that,” she said instantly, and she picked the music from the piano and sang it back to me, heart-stoppingly. I cried.
At any rate, she recorded it many years ago, and you may find the loveliest reading of it on her Christmas album, still on the shelves, after all this time.
The kicker to the story is this: 35 years later, my wife and I were invited to Streisand’s home for a Christmas Eve party, which of course, is her son’s birthday. During the telephone invitation, Barbra asked me if I could possibly bring a copy of the lyrics to “Chasin’ Jason.” She wanted to give it to her son as a 35th birthday present.
She had heard “Chasin’ Jason” once in 35 years, a minute and a half of listening to a new piece of material to which she had barely reacted-had no comment at all-recording another song instead …
Holy smoke!
I’ve always prided myself on my memory. Streisand obviously has a better memory than I do. But, of course, she is one of two geniuses I’ve worked with in my lifetime. I … can’t remember the other one.