Love You Perfectly

Song story & origins

Introduction

Love You Perfectly appears on Refuge (2017). I wrote it during a weekend retreat I was facilitating for teachers at Camp Placerville in the Black Hills. Saturday afternoons there are intentionally unstructured—time to hike, read, journal, or, in my case, walk with an instrument and see if a song wants to arrive. I carried a tenor banjo (four strings, not the five-string Scruggs/bluegrass kind) and my iPhone for capturing rough takes. By the Rapid Creek bank I started semi-improvising—simple progression, openhearted words I only half knew I’d say—and by the end of that sitting I had a little love song I knew I wanted to keep. I recorded two songs that afternoon (the other—about my grandfather—would wait for another day), and the banjo-and-voice phone video of this one was strong enough that I shared that first version. Later I brought it into Dancin’ Moon and built the studio track.

Where the song came from

The opening lines—“All my love / all my doubt”—are a small manifesto for honest love. Early in a relationship we tend to “market” ourselves, presenting the best angles like a social feed. Real marriage can’t live there; it asks for all of it: gifts, fears, mistakes, habits we could “do without.” The refrain answers with a promise: you’ve seen me through; I will keep learning how to love you well.

The middle stanza reaches back to how we met. We were at York College in Nebraska—both families had been connected to that campus for generations. I noticed Sheryl’s smile across a room, we spent time together traveling with choir/chorus, and when I finally asked her to the banquet she’d already said yes to someone else. I talked with him; he knew we were starting something and told me to go for it—a kindness I still appreciate. From the first surface shine to the deeper life we discovered in each other—that’s the movement those lines try to hold.

The closing stanza turns to two metaphors that fit our life: dance (give-and-take, sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow, always listening for the music) and table (we share every dish—“every sweet and every sour”—because what we experience together binds us in ways solitude never could). After decades together, I hear the refrain as a daily vow: gratitude for the one who “sees me through,” and a renewed try at loving truly.

Music and arrangement

I wanted the recording to start exactly where it started that day by the creek: banjo and voice, plain and close. For verse two an acoustic guitar slips in, and from there the track builds—strings, percussion, more lift—until the ending is raucous, almost a party, without losing the simple refrain at its heart. That arc mirrors the story: a relationship that begins quietly, then grows into something full-throated and celebratory.

Why it stays with me

Because it gathers our ordinary life—long love, small memories, hard patches and sweet ones—into a clear promise. Some days it’s the quiet banjo by the water; some days it’s the whole band. Either way, the vow is the same: you’re the one who sees me through; I’m going to keep learning how to love you—well, truly, as close to perfectly as these human hands can manage.

Source: New Music Memoir (1).docx

From the Being Human journal

There’s really nothing “perfect” about love… except maybe that it’s not holding out for perfection. I wrote Love You Perfectly first as a thank-you to my wife for seeing me through all the rough stuff; then I realized it demanded something from deep inside me. It didn’t demand perfect love (I’ll never make it). It demanded a never-ending stretch to love better.

Source: Being Human: The Songs — Album & Journal (2020) · p. 11

Being Human · The Songs

Reflection & journaling

Theme: Relationship

Choose a question or word or line(s) from the lyrics to guide your meditation or journaling as you listen.

1. Does the person, or the people, who love me know that I’m grateful for their support?
2. How do I let them know?
3. What words do I use… what actions?
4. What do I still have to work on in my relationship?
5. Do I forgive myself for not yet doing relationships perfectly?
6. Do I still feel the urgency to love better?

Source: Being Human: The Songs — Album & Journal (2020) · p. 11