This year's love had better last / Cause heaven knows it's high time
I was looking through my iTunes library for New Year's Eve music. Tonight shall, with any luck, be filled with happiness and good company--and why not? The new year presents itself as a slate as clean as the snow that just fell outside. The last year's mountain of missteps--forgiven. At least, that's what New Year's is supposed to represent, right?
Oddly enough, however, this hopeful (or, at least, carefree) spirit isn't reflected in any of the New Year's music I have.
First you've got Semisonic's faux-hopeful "This Will Be My Year," full of delicious futility:
Counting down from ten it’s time to make your annual prayer
Secret Santa in the sky, when will I get my share?
Then you tell yourself what you want to hear
'Cause you have to believe this will be my year
Then there's Nina Gordon, all lonely and frustrated:
I'm here, the party's all around me
You're there, indifference has found me
I know it's not in fashion wearing heartache on your sleeve
But I'm here and you're there and who cares what I wear
On New Year's Eve
Elbow's pretty romantically desperate, too. I identify with this song way too much:
Do you move through the room with a glass in your hand
Thinking too hard about the way you stand
Are you watching them pair off and drinking them long
Are you falling in love every second song
And the bitterness doesn't just extend to romantic relationships. U2's entry refers to certain political realities:
And so we're told this is the golden age
And gold is the reason for the wars we wage
Though I want to be with you, be with you night and day
Nothing changes on New Year's Day
The only song of frivolity I've got is Prince's "1999" -- and even then the song's got a hearty dose of fatalism:
Yeah, everybody's got a bomb, we could all die any day
But before I'll let that happen, I'll dance my life away
Reminds me of some of my conversations with Mom. Instead of Y2K, it's bird flu. She's pretty much decided that we're all going die in an influenza epidemic sooner or later. I'm not so convinced. But it does seem rather odd (and depressing) that we both react to this prospect with indifference. So it goes.
All this might say something about my music collection--or reflect how it has become cool to be jaded about holidays. I don't know. Looking at traditional New Year's music, though, I suspect this isn't really a new tendency. I've never been a fan of "Auld Lang Syne." Pretty much all the song says (once you get through the thick Scottish dialect) is "We're probably never gonna see each other again, so let's get sloshed and be nostalgic." Bah. The song is only positive insofar that you see nostalgia as a productive activity. Of course remembering history is important--to a certain point. But when it gets to thinking how everything used to be better in the good ol' days (to the exclusion of hope for the future)...is there any surprise that so many bitter New Year's songs would crop up?
Then I happened to stumble upon the French New Year's song "Chorale des Adieux." It is sung to the same tune as "Auld Lang Syne," but the lyrics are very different. And, in my view, much better.
Must it leave us without hope
Without hope of return
Must it leave us without hope
Of seeing each other again one day?
Old friends from long ago
Are they forgotten?
While our hearts have kept
Love from long ago?
Let's make from our clasped hands
At the end of this day
Let's make from our clasped hands
A chain of love.
Friends, linked by this chain,
Around the same fire;
Friends, linked by this chain
Let's not say farewell.
For the ideal that brings us together
Will live in the future,
For the ideal that brings us together
Will know how to reunite us.
Mmm...
There is still one New Year's song in my music collection that I really like. "This Year's Love" by David Gray has that realistic bitterness to it--but the song overall still manages to be hopeful, especially at the end. I like that.
This year's love had better last
'Cause heaven knows it's high time
And I've been waitin' on my own too long
It takes something more this time
Than sweet, sweet lies
Before I open up my eyes and fall
Losing all control
Every dream inside my soul
When you kiss me on that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singin', "Ain't this life so sweet?"
...
'Cause who's to worry
If our hearts get torn
When that hurt gets thrown
Don't you know this life goes on?
Won't you kiss me on that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singin', "Ain't this life so sweet?"
I'll drink to that.
Whatever song you're singing this New Year's, I hope all y'all have a lovely evening and a radiant 2006. Cheers.
Oddly enough, however, this hopeful (or, at least, carefree) spirit isn't reflected in any of the New Year's music I have.
First you've got Semisonic's faux-hopeful "This Will Be My Year," full of delicious futility:
Counting down from ten it’s time to make your annual prayer
Secret Santa in the sky, when will I get my share?
Then you tell yourself what you want to hear
'Cause you have to believe this will be my year
Then there's Nina Gordon, all lonely and frustrated:
I'm here, the party's all around me
You're there, indifference has found me
I know it's not in fashion wearing heartache on your sleeve
But I'm here and you're there and who cares what I wear
On New Year's Eve
Elbow's pretty romantically desperate, too. I identify with this song way too much:
Do you move through the room with a glass in your hand
Thinking too hard about the way you stand
Are you watching them pair off and drinking them long
Are you falling in love every second song
And the bitterness doesn't just extend to romantic relationships. U2's entry refers to certain political realities:
And so we're told this is the golden age
And gold is the reason for the wars we wage
Though I want to be with you, be with you night and day
Nothing changes on New Year's Day
The only song of frivolity I've got is Prince's "1999" -- and even then the song's got a hearty dose of fatalism:
Yeah, everybody's got a bomb, we could all die any day
But before I'll let that happen, I'll dance my life away
Reminds me of some of my conversations with Mom. Instead of Y2K, it's bird flu. She's pretty much decided that we're all going die in an influenza epidemic sooner or later. I'm not so convinced. But it does seem rather odd (and depressing) that we both react to this prospect with indifference. So it goes.
All this might say something about my music collection--or reflect how it has become cool to be jaded about holidays. I don't know. Looking at traditional New Year's music, though, I suspect this isn't really a new tendency. I've never been a fan of "Auld Lang Syne." Pretty much all the song says (once you get through the thick Scottish dialect) is "We're probably never gonna see each other again, so let's get sloshed and be nostalgic." Bah. The song is only positive insofar that you see nostalgia as a productive activity. Of course remembering history is important--to a certain point. But when it gets to thinking how everything used to be better in the good ol' days (to the exclusion of hope for the future)...is there any surprise that so many bitter New Year's songs would crop up?
Then I happened to stumble upon the French New Year's song "Chorale des Adieux." It is sung to the same tune as "Auld Lang Syne," but the lyrics are very different. And, in my view, much better.
Must it leave us without hope
Without hope of return
Must it leave us without hope
Of seeing each other again one day?
Old friends from long ago
Are they forgotten?
While our hearts have kept
Love from long ago?
Let's make from our clasped hands
At the end of this day
Let's make from our clasped hands
A chain of love.
Friends, linked by this chain,
Around the same fire;
Friends, linked by this chain
Let's not say farewell.
For the ideal that brings us together
Will live in the future,
For the ideal that brings us together
Will know how to reunite us.
Mmm...
There is still one New Year's song in my music collection that I really like. "This Year's Love" by David Gray has that realistic bitterness to it--but the song overall still manages to be hopeful, especially at the end. I like that.
This year's love had better last
'Cause heaven knows it's high time
And I've been waitin' on my own too long
It takes something more this time
Than sweet, sweet lies
Before I open up my eyes and fall
Losing all control
Every dream inside my soul
When you kiss me on that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singin', "Ain't this life so sweet?"
...
'Cause who's to worry
If our hearts get torn
When that hurt gets thrown
Don't you know this life goes on?
Won't you kiss me on that midnight street
Sweep me off my feet
Singin', "Ain't this life so sweet?"
I'll drink to that.
Whatever song you're singing this New Year's, I hope all y'all have a lovely evening and a radiant 2006. Cheers.