The Story Behind the Song
Perfect Harmony was written as part of the small grouping of songs I wrote for Terry in honor of our fiftieth wedding anniversary. It tells the story of how her father did not like the idea of his daughter dating a guitar-playing, song-singing teenager. In fact, he made life so miserable for Terry that for a while there, I think we broke up about once a month. Of course, we would get back together again, just so we could break up the next month.
Being a clueless adolescent, I didn’t understand his problem with me. I figured I was just writing and singing love songs to his daughter because I planned on marrying her someday. Sergeant James J. Adams of the Fairbanks Police Department was not amused by my flippant attitude.
The last verse, where Terry’s mom comes around, is more literary license than anything. She never had the serious objections to me that her husband did. However, the part where he agrees to “drop me a line,” is actually quite true. That concession came several years down the road, when Terry asked if I were to write to him (I was serving an LDS mission at the time) would he write back. His response was to the effect that, “Well, it looks like he’s going to be my son-in-law, so I guess I might as well…”
Unfortunately, Terry’s dad died from a massive heart attack just a couple of weeks later. So, Jim and I never did get a chance to get to know each other. Still, Terry and I take great comfort in knowing that, if he had lived, we would have been able to work through our rocky beginnings.
The question has been asked, given the story behind the song, why is (For Lady D) included in the title? Before I can answer that you need to understand that there is an old writing adage that says, “Write what you know.” Taking this sage advice to heart, in The Long Cuppa Coffee, the Broadway novel I hope to finish in the near future, there is a character, Danny Rose, whose early life and love of music greatly resemble mine. And in the book, he writes and dedicates this particular song, and two others, to his wife, who he refers to with great affection as “Lady D.” Danny gave the songs to Lady D for their first anniversary, I gave mine to Terry for our 50th anniversary... It’s all just me, writing what I know.