Morning Trivia Quiz

Answer: Narrow

Waking on the morning after the night before, the speaker feels confined in the narrow room, so unlike the world that 'began when we were young Last night'.

Answer: Your steady breathing

The speaker's awareness starts out narrowly focused, confined: 'I feel your back pressed close to me'. And yet, the nearness is not comforting in this strange, new morning world.

Answer: True

The second line ends with the phrase, "as you sleep".

The speaker is alone, cut off from his lover as she sleeps with her back to him, despite the physical closeness.

Answer: Dawn

The speaker makes an effort to expand his focus, consciously looking beyond the confines of the bed and the room.

Answer: A silver ray

Seeking the comfort of a soft glow, all the speaker finds is a cold silver ray, not outside, but on the wall, emphasizing the narrowness of the room, the bed, this moment.

Answer: I feel the ring and know this night is all we'll ever have

Through the accident of a touch, the speaker is forced to confront the truth.

Answer: Into your sleepy eyes

Having confronted the truth, the speaker now has to confront the other person in the light of that truth.

Answer: You breathe my name

The speaker's lover breathes his name, but the action is empty. "It just seems to dangle there."

Answer: Fingers, mind

In a curious confusion of sensations, the speaker feels his lover's fingers running through his mind, emphasizing the unreality and wrongness of the moment.

Answer: Thoughts

The speaker's thoughts are unsettled, and no wonder. The situation is unsettling.

Answer: All there is

All there is, the speaker's whole reality consists of 'this', the room, the bed, the woman beside him.

Answer: Gone

There's a world of finality in that one word, 'gone'.

Answer: Despairing

Despite the speaker's unsettled feelings inside the room, his mind becomes clear, if sad, as he and his erstwhile lover leave its confines to return to the real world.

Answer: A ray of sun that ricochets from off the roof

"A ray of sun that ricochets..." This is a striking turn of phrase. Customarily, we think of bullets ricocheting, not rays of sunlight. It seems to me this image expresses better than any other in the lyric the bleakness in the speaker's mind.

Answer: the ring

"I touch your hand and feel the ring and know this night is all we'll ever have"

Whether it be an engagement ring or a wedding band, the ring is mute testament that whatever happened the night before is all that can ever happen between these two.

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Michael Valentine Doonican was an Irish crooner with an easy, relaxed style. He achieved stardom in both his native Ireland and Great Britain, where he had chart success with albums as well as singles in the mid to late 1960s. His only British number one album, "Val Doonican Rocks, But Gently", that spent three weeks at the top of the British album chart between December 31 1967 and January 20 1968, displaced The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", which had been in the number one spot for twenty-three consecutive weeks. His 1971 single "Morning" reached number twelve in Britain and number five in Ireland.