To Know Him Is to Love Him

You know what's exciting? To hear finally a song that's become mythic to you. I read a long time ago that one of the first songs that Phil Spector ever wrote was one called To Know Him Is to Love Him. I heard it on the oldies station today, at long last. I knew immediately that that was Phil (or at least I think it was). The song was everything I hoped it would be. The word on the street is that Spector penned it from the epitaph on the grave of his father, who died when he was still fairly young. When I heard the song, sung in the voice of a teenage girl about her guy, I thought, "Yeah, that still sounds like an epitaph" - and not so much like a love song. But still it was sublime, like Spector always is.