Since You Asked

by Judy Collins

In “Love for Sale,” Cole Porter asks “Who’s prepared to pay the price?” Judy Collins, in this song, answers a similar question: “What will you give me for my love?” In both songs, love is a bargain to be struck. An exchange.

I placed this song on the downward slope of a love affair. When someone asks “What will you give me?” I think it’s time to start packing your bags.

Judy Collins didn’t see it that way. In her autobiography, “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes,” she writes that Leonard Cohen, whose songs she had made famous, encouraged her to write her own material.

She was at a loss as to where to begin until guitarist Bruce Langhorne suggested she “write five songs about a relationship—the beginning, the middle, two more, and then the end. I did just that, beginning with ‘Since You Asked.’”

When it was time to record the guitar solo for my version I asked John Hoy to make it edgy in keeping with the end of an affair. When he sent back the track he had recorded in his home studio he wrote “I just couldn’t go there. The track is so subtle and beautiful.”

I guess Judy Collins was right. Whether it’s about the beginning of a love affair or the beginning of the end, it’s a great song.

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