Lyrics

On the hills of fire the darkest hour
I was dreaming of my true love’s pyre
Who will bring a light to stoke the fire
Fear not for you’re still breathing

On a winter’s day
I saw the life blood drained away

A cold wind blows on a windless day
Hear the cry for new life the morning’s flame
You were the brightest light that burned too soon in vain
Who will bring you back from where there’s no return
Fear not for you’re just dreaming

On a winter’s day I saw the life blood drained away
A cold wind blows on a windless day

 

Appears on

Touch (1989)
Closer: The Best Of Sarah McLachlan (2008) The Essential Sarah McLachlan (2013)

Live EP (1992)

Fumbling Towards Ecstasy Live DVD (1994)
Video Collection 1989-1994 (1995)
Video Collection 1989-1998 (2000)

 

Versions

Album Version
from “Touch” 1989
Track length: 4:57

78 Version
from “Touch” 1988
Track length: 5:09

Live: Live EP
from the “Live EP 1992”
Track length: 4:58

Live: Fumbling Towards Ecstasy Live
from the “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy Live DVD”
Track length: 3:52

 

Compilations

Credits

Vocals, Piano: Sarah McLachlan
Double Bass: Dave Kershaw

 

Collaborations

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Trivia/Notes

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Sarah says

“Ben’s Song was definitly a highlight for me…It was sort of one of the first songs I wrote where I really felt good about being a songwriter…and..As it was one of my first attempts, you know…It was one of, I think, 10 or 11 songs that I wrote for that record…uhm, it was definitly the first time I felt like ‘Okay, I’ve done something good here. This feels really great’. And it was also a song that came out very quickly and…and songwriting has never been easy for me. It’s a slow laborious process, uhm, and once in a blue moon a song comes out quickly and sort of the universe opens itself up to me and offers me this gift. And Ben’s Song was that time. And I think it’s just because I was so, uhm, emotionally raw at that time. Ben was a child that I knew. He was 11 years old when he passed away. He had an inoperable brain tumor. And, uhm, I had spent a numer of months with him, uhm, with him everyday in childcare taking care of him and hanging out with him and playing games with him and just being his friend. So we became very close. And he was the first person who was ever close to me that I had lost. I mean I had grandparents die but I had met them once in my life so there was never real emotional connection. So it was definitly really a strong emotional response to that whole thing and that where it all came from.”
– iTunes Originals

In a 30 March 1989 interview with KCRW Santa Monica, Sarah said:
When I was in Halifax, for the last year that I was there, I met this boy named Ben. He was 10 years old. I met him right before Christmas time. And he had a stroke and half his side was paralyzed. And no one could figure out why he had had this stroke. He did a whole bunch of tests and no one really knew what was wrong with him. And he slowly regressed. I can’t say I babysat him because he wasn’t a baby. I stayed with him everyday because he needed someone to take care of him. I stayed with him and got very close to him and he got worse and worse. About three months later, they did another CAT scan on him and they found a big brain tumor and that was the cause of the whole thing in the beginning even though they hadn’t found anything in the first place. So I stayed with him up to when I got a record contract and I moved out to Vancouver in September of ’87. And I saw him. He had moved to Toronto by that time and was in the Mayo Clinic for cancer and I went to visit him there for his birthday before I moved out to Vancouver. And then I came back and was going to Halifax for Christmas and I went to spend a day in Toronto to see him and I got there at 7 in the morning and I called his father and he had died the week before. So it was kind of sad. And I wrote the lyrics the same night that he died. Yeah, and I didn’t even know about it. It was really sad. He was just a wonderful kid, really smart. It was a big shame.

 

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