Inspiration : Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You?
I remember thinking, I can never be far from this person again... he is my soul. He seemed to be in a lot of pain, though hid it well. But finally, a few days later, (we were in Denver), he rented a jeep and drove me up into the snow covered hills of Colorado... for about two hours... He wouldn't tell me where we were going... but he did tell me a story of a little daughter that he had lost. To Joe, she was more than a child... she was three and a half [according to the plaque, little Emma wasn't even three yet]... and she could relate to him.
I guess I had been complaining about alot of things going on on the road, and he decided to make me aware of how unimportant my problems were, if they were compared to worse sorrows. So he told me that he had taken his little girl to this magic park whenever he could, and the only thing she EVER complained about was that she was too little to reach up to the drinking fountain.
As we drove up to this beautiful park, (it was snowing a little bit), he came around to open my door and help me down, and when I looked up and saw the park... his baby's park, and I burst into tears saying, 'You built a drinking fountain here for her... didn't you?' I was right, under a huge beautiful hanging tree, was a tiny silver drinking fountain... I left Joe to get to it, and on it, it said, 'dedicated to HER and all others who were too small to get a drink.'
So he wrote a song for her [Song For Emma from "So What?"] and I wrote a song for him... 'This is your song...' I said... to the people... but it was Joe's song. Thank you, Joe, for the most committed song I ever wrote... But more than that, thank you for inspiring me in so many ways. Nothing in my life ever seems as dark anymore since we took that drive.
From the Timespace Liner Notes
"Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You. Probably um, in my own way this is probably my most intense song. What happened with this song is uh, I was, we went on the Wild Heart Tour in like, I guess it was 1984, something like that. Joe Walsh was opening for me and we became friends. And I was very uptight about something that was going on and, I don't even remember what it was. But Joe felt that is was important in the scheme of our lives to tell me a story that would make me rise above all of it.
And so, we were in Denver and he rented a jeep and he drove me up to Boulder, which is like an hour and a half, and told me this story on the way of a little girl that was killed in an accident in the morning on her way to nursery school. His little girl, in Boulder. And he kinda drove up to this park and I knew something, I knew he was gonna show me something that was gonna freak me out 'cause I was already totally upset by the time we got to Boulder. And we walked across this park and there was this little silver drinking fountain, and it said uh, 'To Emma Kristen, for all those who can't, or aren't big enough to get a drink.'
And something about this story touched me so deeply that I went home to me house in Phoenix, I got out of the car, I walked into the front entryway, where my Bosendorfer piano is, I sat down at the piano and I wrote this song. And I wrote it in about five minutes, the whole thing. So that is what this song is about."
From Storytellers |
On 31 Jan 2003, I decided to go on a quest for this fountain... being so close to Boulder, it seemed stupid not to. So after several hours of detective work (and the help of KBCO's Ginger), I was able to pin down the whereabouts of this magical park and the fountain within.
As it turns out, Emma's fountain is located in North Boulder Park, not far from the playground equipment and the little shelter.
Emma's fountain is not an ornate fountain with all the bells and whistles, it is simply a drinking fountain, like the ones seen all over the world. It is indeed smaller than most other fountains however, in the spirit that Emma could get a drink if she wanted to. Although not decorated and extravagant, the fountain is better the way it is, quiet, simple and plain.
In my search, I found that many people do not know who the little girl who has a fountain in North Boulder Park is. They do not know that she is Joe Walsh's daughter, and they do not know how she died. I asked many Boulder citizens and several people who actually know Joe Walsh along with people who consider themselves encyclopedias on Joe. Not one of them knew of Emma. Many who have read the piece in Timespace have chalked it up to a nice story, but not true.
The one person I found who had heard of Emma was Rono, a guitar maker who works out of a shop in Boulder. He told me that both Emma and her mom [Joe's first wife] had been killed by a drunk driver. [According to the Newspaper Article on the Eagles in 2003 from the Denver Post, Stephanie, did not die.]
 
Song For Emma
Joe Walsh
There's a feeling I get when I look to the sky
As if someone is watching,
Someone hears every word.
We are filled with regrets, it was such a short time,
But we told Him we loved you, hoping somehow He heard.
We hoped He heard...
You were with us for a while and He took you,
and He made your mama cry.
I can see it in her eyes, there's a question as to why.
And after all this time still I find that I'm without an answer.
Good Bye. Bye love.
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