Dawn and I are walking up Mass Ave in the morning, walking to work. At some point we’re talking about tall and short or something about height anyway, and Dawn mentions that, compared to me, she’s closer to the ground.

It makes me think of, and so I immediately start singing to her, the wonderful song Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground. It was written by Willie Nelson, but I’ve never actually heard any version that he’s done. I know the Bob Dylan version. I think it was a b-side of some single in the early to mid eighties. I had a 7-inch of it, and I must have played it to death in my room that I rented in Fairfax when I was going to George Mason University. I think it was 1985.

And I had it around the time that Francois Truffaut died. It always makes me think of him. And the single that I had was misprinted, or erroneous, in that it listed the songwriting credit as Dylan himself, rather than Willie Nelson.

(Some Googling shows that Truffaut died in October of 1984. Harder to track down the song. Probably the b-side to Union Sundown, and a European release apparently. Most likely I bought it at Yesterday and Today Records in Rockville, to which we made frequent pilgrimages in those days.)