Shimmering memory, come and hold me/
While you show me how to fly.
Judee Sill’s “The Kiss” is similar to Morning Has Broken or Bridge Over Troubled Water in that it sounds like a hymn rather than a rock song. The theme of the song is how a kiss can be like a religious experience. It almost sounds too cheesy to express it like that. Sill says it is like “communion”—when we become one with God. Still describes a kiss: it is like a “Holy Breath”, a “Wind Song” that can teach one to fly.
Take a minute and think about the last time you heard an artist use such unique descriptions for a common, everyday experience? But a kiss is not common at all—that’s her point.
The production on “The Kiss” highlights Sill’s voice perfectly. The piano coupled with the symphony in the background create a secular hymn. And again…her voice! Wow. Perhaps this song brings a kiss the proper reverence it deserves.
“The Kiss” is Sill’s masterpiece. She sings like an angel and writes all her own songs. She has several great songs. Not famous songs, but great songs. Somehow fame slipped past her. She died young and in obscurity.
You may also like this cover by the Fleet Foxes:
The Kiss Lyrics
Over rising from the mists,
Promise me this and only this:
Holy breath touching me, like a wind song.
Sweet communion of a kiss.
Sun sifting through the grey,
Enter in, reach me with a ray.
Silently swooping down, just to show me
How to give my heart away.
Once a crystal choir
Appeared while I was sleeping
And called my name.
And when they came down nearer
Saying, dying is done.
Then a new song was sung,
Until somewhere we breathed as one,
And still I hear their whisper.
Stars bursting in the sky,
Hear the sad nova’s dying cry.
Shimmering memory, come and hold me
While you show me how to fly.
Sun sifting through the grey,
Enter in, reach me with a ray.
Silently swooping down, just to show me
How to give my heart away.
Lately sparkling hosts
Come fill my dreams, descending
On fiery beams.
I’ve seen ’em come clear down
Where our poor bodies lay.
Soothe us gently and say,
Gonna wipe all your tears away.
And still I hear their whisper.
Love, rising from the mists,
Promise me this and only this:
Holy breath touching me, like a wind song
Sweet communion of a kiss.