If October Hill doesn’t exist, let’s make one

By Phil Stanford

The Portland Tribune, Apr 26, 2005, Updated Oct 30, 2009

The search for October Hill continues Ñ and from his usual perch at the far end of the Wildwood bar, Loren Sutherland has volunteered to lead us onward to a successful, and if he does say so himself, emotionally rewarding conclusion.

Never mind that October Hill Ñ which is, of course, the place in the song “Love’s Been Good to Me,” where the singer and his Portland girlfriend go to get away from everybody Ñ doesn’t appear on any map of the area.

Or for that matter, that Rod McKuen, who actually wrote the song, seems to suggest that October Hill may not exist except in his imagination.

This Sutherland guy is not one to be easily discouraged.

• • •

In fact, ever since this whole October Hill thing popped up here as part of our continuing search for the ultimate Portland song, Loren’s been having flashbacks to the days when Frank Sinatra’s famous version of “Love’s Been Good to Me” served as background music for his many Ñ and, he assures me, more or less successful Ñ youthful efforts at seduction.

And who am I to suggest, as is so often the case after you’ve had a couple of drinks and Loren starts telling these stories, that maybe he’s embellishing the record a little.

Especially considering the fact that I, too, remember the verse in question almost as if it were yesterday:

There was a girl in Portland

Before the winter chill

We used to go a-courtin’

Along October Hill

And as Sutherland points out, not even McKuen attempts to deny that the Portland mentioned here is the Rose City itself.

• • •

In fact, as McKuen himself noted in response to a recent e-mail, “Of course ‘the girl in Portland’ lived in Oregon. As a kid I spent a lot of time in and around Portland.”

So there, says Sutherland.

And she could laugh away the dark clouds

Cry away the snow

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