I’ve been waiting such a long time
To try a pickup line on you
I’ve been waiting such a long time
It might be corny but it’s true
You have such a beautiful smile
And I’m crazy over you
Back in eighty-five on Pesach
We were at the same hotel
I spent that whole Pesach
Just looking at you, nothing else
So then I turned out the yutzmach
‘Cause you were gone and my heart fell
Yeah, that was me you saw in town
That soldier freaking out by Richie’s
I was drunk enough to drown
My mind was feeling very glitchy
To you I guess I’m just a clown
Whose very presence makes you itchy
So you say I’ve lost my brain
And that I’m a madman too
Well, maybe what you’re sayin’
And maybe what you think is true
I may be insane
But I’m crazy over you
Now I’m crazy over you
Now I’m crazy over you
Now I’m crazy over you
Now I’m crazy over you
I may be insane
But I’m crazy over you
©2024 The Hesh Inc.
I wrote this during my first year in the army. Shortly before I began my service, I spent the Passover holiday at one of Jerusalem's fanciest hotels with my family, and I hung out with a lot of my friends in the hotel lounge. Several booths away from the one my friends and I had made our own were a number of rather attractive females, and I became quite taken with one of them, who would light up the room with her smile. But I didn't get up the nerve to actually talk to her until the holiday was over, and by that time it was too late ... alas.
Then I began my service, in which the rigors of basic training all but swept any thoughts of such innocent flirtation away. Basic ended, and I was assigned to a combat unit, from which I would get weekend passes every two to three weeks. On one such weekend off, from a taxi passing through the center of town, I spied ... the girl with the illuminating smile, whom I thought I had seen the last of the year before. Once I was back on base at the beginning of the next week, I scribbled these lyrics during some spare moments, and the next time I was off, I posted the lyrics on the famed bulletin board at Richie's Pizza, where she was sure to see them. And sure enough, she did, and she replied, and one thing led to another, and ... (I won't say we lived happily ever after, but we did have a few nice times together).
The music I had in mind when I wrote the lyrics was a blues-rock groove similar to "All Your Love" by John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. In any event, I must be the only songwriter out there, ostensibly writing in English, who uses and rhymes the words "Pesach" and "yutzmach," and with a straight face yet!