Roll of the Dice: Blue Moon Turns to Gold

Okay, humor me here, because I’m well aware that with this installment I’m crossing over into obsessive territory.

In Bruce’s book of song lyrics entitled (appropriately) Songs, there’s a two-page spread of Bruce’s hand-written lyrics for “Gloria’s Eyes.” Of all the songs in Bruce’s catalog–or even of all the songs on Human Touch–why he chose “Gloria’s Eyes” as the hand-written lyrics to gift us with is something I can’t answer.

But–Bruce apparently likes to write in notebooks that have thin paper, because in the photo we can easily see the writing from the opposite side of the page seeping through.

So of course upon noticing this, we have to immediately hold the page up to a mirror, right? Lo and behold: a song we’ve never heard to this day, called “Blue Moon Turns to Gold.”

And while most of the first half of the song is obscured by the last lines of “Gloria’s Eyes” (darn it), the second half is clear enough to make out much of it.

The song title is almost certainly a hat tip to the 1941 Wiley Walker/Gene Sullivan recording (covered by Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Emmylou Harris, and more) “When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again.”

But while the title might have been borrowed, the lyrics are original.

Unfortunately, the first half is really hard to make out. The good folks at brucelyrics.com took a stab at it, but my inspection tells me that their decryption is inaccurate. Unfortunately, I can’t come up with anything better, so rather than give myself a headache trying (if you want to try, be my guest–I’d love to know what you come up with), here’s my transcription of the second half:

In high school ??? her hair
What you got baby under there
Something hot for when the night turns cold
I’d want you till … [presumably the chorus “the blue moon turns to gold” goes here]

When the school days was done
marry me baby, we’ll have a lot of fun
All I heard was no no no no
I’ll be cryin’ till the blue moon turns to gold

So you wanna leave our little town
Someday all that’s this world won’t be nothin but ice and cold
My love will burn inside till the blue moon…

So, um, yeah–not exactly Bruce’s deepest (or even coherent) lyrics.

I can understand why this one hasn’t seen the light of day. But it makes you wonder, doesn’t it: what else is hidden on the flip sides of those notebook pages?

Blue Moon Turns to Gold
Never recorded
Never released
Never performed

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