1966: Distant Drums - Jim Reeves

"Love me now, for now is all the time there may be"

My Nan and I have shared a lot of music with each other over the years. From the songs of Elvis Presley and Shania Twain to those from David Bowie or Blondie; Whitney Houston to Marty Wilde and Tony Joe White or the Chairman of the Board and beyond, but the musical family connection didn't stop there. With one song in particular, she passed down a memory of her mum to me, and the most enduring memory I have of my great-grandmother.

By chance one day, years ago now, we happened to hear Jim Reeves’ Distant Drums somewhere together. I’d never heard it before, and was only familiar with a handful of other Jim Reeves songs like Welcome to My World and He’ll Have to Go at that point, but of course his lush voice and accompaniment are both instantly recognisable to anyone who has heard either one before.

It was new to me then, but I’ve listened to the song a lot in the years since, partly because it has got such a beguiling and enchanting gentle power to it, and partly because my Nan told me that hearing it reminds her of her mum, who would sing along with the song when it came on the radio back when it first came out.

Jim Reeves himself never got to hear this particular version of the song. Although he recorded it in 1963, it would be three more years until the song was released, by which time it had been overdubbed with strings and orchestral flourishes and Jim Reeves had died in a 1964 plane crash.

When it did finally come out, it topped the charts on both sides of the pond, and was Reeves’ only Number 1 hit in the UK. It even kept The Beatles’ double A-side of Eleanor Rigby/Yellow Submarine from the top of the charts.

There is a magnetic quality to Reeves’ vocal performance, and a soothing, charming depth in his dulcet tone that combines so perfectly with the gently sweeping music, which warms you and washes over you. There is a dreamy, hazy tranquillity in this song that sounds so out of place when you think of what else was being released in 1966. It must have even sounded like it was drifting in from a by-gone age at the time it was coming out, but the song is so soothing, so calming and grounding that it is no wonder it cut through and connected with as many people as it did.

The internal rhyme in the line “so Mary, marry me” is a real joy, as is the time switch up when the drums start swinging into the chorus. When Reeves sings “love me now, for now is all the time there may be” his calmness belies the depth of his message, but it’s an affecting line that quietly creeps up on you and leaves an impression. Knowing that he had so suddenly and sadly lost his life makes the message even starker.

My Nan would have been nine when the song came out in 1966. I don’t know how old her mum would have been at the time. I don’t know anything else about her mum, really; what she looked like, or what her name was, even. I don’t know what their kitchen looked like, or what kind of radio they had, or who else was around at the time, but I do know that when Jim Reeves’ Distant Drums came on their radio in their kitchen, my Nan’s mum would sing along to it. I don’t know what my Nan looked like as a child, or much else about what she remembers from that time, but I know who she thinks about when she hears the song. And so now, who I think about, too, every time I hear those Distant Drums.

For two and a half short minutes whenever I listen to the song, I feel connected to both of these women. One who I have known and loved for my whole life, and one who I never met, and I feel welcomed to their world.