Breakfast with Norman
Reflections: Norman Mailer at 100, ed. Gerald R. Lucas and Maggie McKinley (The Norman Mailer Society, 2023), pp. 33–34; transcribed from the final interior PDF
From Reflections: Norman Mailer at 100 (The Norman Mailer Society, 2023), pp. 33–34.
“We’ll love the good times all night long,
And soon tomorrow, you’ll be gone.
Then one more time, I’ll wait for you,
Cause you’ll come back,
You always do.”—Norman Mailer
The first time I met Norman was in 2002, when he came to my record release party in New York City’s Meatpacking District. He slipped silently into a booth, paid close attention to the performance, and appeared captivated throughout.
Several years later, while visiting Norman and his wife Norris in Provincetown, I was speaking to Norman about his collaboration with composer Angelo Badalamenti. In Norman’s film Tough Guys Don’t Dance, there is a little-known song “You’ll Come Back (You Always Do)” with lyrics penned by Norman over Angelo’s mournful, beautiful melody. It plays in the background in a bar scene in the film, so the lyrics are almost unintelligible. Norris knew the tune and sang it for us a capella. It was sublime, and I was so taken by it that I raced out to buy a recording device to capture Norris’s plaintive rendition.
At Norris’s request, I returned to P-town several months later and performed it with a new album of songs for a benefit for The Provincetown Repertory Theatre.
The concert was held in an old church in the middle of Commercial Street. The acoustics, the sleepy winter weather, the energy of the locals, and the synergy of my trio created a magical evening. And there was Norman, as always, in the front row — intently focused and present.
The next morning, I was told that Norman wanted to speak with me privately. I found him in his usual breakfast spot, at the dining room table, seated in front of his array of newspapers. I have to admit, I was prepared to be heralded with praise. I had not yet learned always to expect the unexpected from Norman.
“Sasha,” he told me, “you have not yet suffered enough to sing that song properly. You need more grit, cigarettes, age and whiskey in your voice. It’s a song for a woman over 50.” And then, as if offering up some premonition: “You have some hard living to do and then, maybe, you can embody those words…”
Oh — the sting of that moment!
He concluded with: “But, I really dug the Youkali Tango and the Rachmaninoff.”
My father-in-law was a prescient and formidable character in many regards.
It is now 2022, and I have experienced my share of heartbreak and adversity since my breakfast with Norman long ago. Yet as impassioned as I am by this song and its lyrics, unlike what Norman foresaw, mercifully, it is not my story to tell.
Sasha Lazard