Album:  

Writer

Steven Digman

Length:

2:57

Notes:

Songwriting can be a bit like prospecting for gold. You can spend ages scratching around in dirt without reward. Some songwriters find the motherlode and can find gold almost at will. Others may just happen across one massive nugget and never get lucky again. Steven Digman is probably in the latter category. He wrote "Anniversary Song" and had a vocalist in mind for it but when he took it to Chris Biondo's studio in Maryland, Biondo happened to be looking for material for Eva Cassidy to record and he insisted the song be offered to her. Eva loved it, and of course smashed it. Digman co-wrote another song for Cassidy, "Say Goodbye", but otherwise hasn't dug up a great deal of gold in the thirty years since, which he has spent running a violin shop in Florida (always a good fall-back plan).

Katie has the ability and respect to cover Eva's songs beautifully, and this is another example. She hasn't recorded it in the studio (that we're aware of anyway)—this is a live performance. There are a handful of songs that she has performed live over the years that have thankfully been caught on CD. They are rare treasures and we can only sigh about other songs she has occasionally treated audiences to that have slipped through the recording net and evaporated into the ether forever. I know of a few she has done that I really wish I'd been there to hear. C'est la vie.

YouTube:

There is a video of Katie performing "Anniversary Song" on YouTube. It forms the second half of an eight-minute sequence which begins with "I Put A Spell On You", complete with Batty tinkling the ivories. But this little piece of film perfectly illustrates that whilst Katie can easily hold her own with a jazz band it is when she is alone with her guitar that she can make a thousand people hold their breath and journey to another dimension with her for a few special moments in time. The title of the first song turns out to be a declaration of intent for the performance of the second. Hermione Melua waves her wand again. "Musicus mesmerandio!"
I Put A Spell On You and Anniversary Song live.

Lyrics:

Anniversary Song