Nilsson: The Life of a Singer-Songwriter by Shipton Alyn

Author:Shipton, Alyn [Shipton, Alyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2013-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

7

DON’T FORGET ME

In the summertime

By the poolside

While the fireflies

Are all around you

I’ll miss you when I’m lonely

UNA O’KEEFFE HAD not intended to be in America for very long. The Students’ Union organization that had set up her visit provided little more than a pre-visit briefing, a round-trip air ticket, and a couple of nights in a New York hotel, with an orientation meeting to allow students to get their bearings. Then it was up to them to find a job for two months before heading home for the autumn term. Many Irish students opted for summer camps up in the Catskills, working with younger children in the area’s open-air resorts. Una and Grainne had decided quite spontaneously to go to New York City itself when they attended a presentation at their college. She recalled:

I asked my parents, “Would it be okay if I went to New York for the summer?” My father is a very quiet man, but he really believed in travel. So he thought it was a good idea. He had no worries about it, but my mother told me later that they were doing the dishes that night, and she said to my father, “I don’t know about this. It’s very far away, and she’ll probably marry a Yank. And we’ll never see her again.” So I did marry a Yank—but they did see me again!1

Despite Nilsson’s proposal, it was some three years before they were married, and Una was to spend much of the intervening time in Ireland completing her studies. But, as she reached the end of her job at the ice cream parlor, she had been planning a week of travel in North America. So, in place of her original plans, Nilsson suggested that he take her back with him across the country—effectively retracing part of the route he had just traveled with Stanley Dorfman in reverse—but this time traveling in private planes or chauffeured cars. Finally, she would fly home from Los Angeles. He started in true romantic fashion by taking Una on a nighttime tour of Central Park in a horse-drawn cab.

Two days later, Nilsson and Una arrived in Washington, D.C., so that he could attend a hearing of the U.S. Senate Watergate Committee. The hearings, investigating the break-in to Democratic Party headquarters by burglars acting on behalf of President Nixon’s reelection campaign, had begun in May 1973 and by August they had become something of a media circus attraction. Many leading figures from the entertainment world attended the hearings as the weeks rolled by and further damning evidence was uncovered by the committee. Ultimately, the process led to Nixon’s impeachment and resignation. Nilsson was fascinated by the story. Indeed, one of his lapel buttons on the cover photograph for A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night shows Frank Wills, the African American security guard who discovered the break-in.

Nilsson’s attendance had been arranged by the controversial left-of-center senator from Connecticut, Lowell P. Weiker, who was one of the three Republicans on the committee.

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