I don’t want to sing this song to you
I don’t want to sit and hold your hand
I don’t want to dress up to take you out
I don’t want to whisper sweet goodbyes into your ears
The above chorus lines of an unfinished song seem to lament a relationship gone sour. It seems to convey a background picture of an angry defiant lover, sitting alone, who emphatically declares his lack of love and affection for the one he once loved. It does not kindle any special emotions within us except probably reinforce anger and echo similar feelings especially if we are found to be in a similar relationship status as the one that seems to be described above.
Let me change the background picture for you – here is a man dressed smart, holding the hand of his beloved, singing this song and whispering goodbyes into the ears of his dead lover who is waiting to be taken into the funeral carriage for the last ride of her life.
As I re-read the lines of the song again, my heart is now filled with a completely different set of emotions and I gasp and turn my eyes away. If I linger long enough over the words and try to imagine the scene created by the song writer, it reduces me to tears and creates an ache in the heart that does not want to go away. My heart reaches out for the young man and the life he is going to live without his loved one. For him to sing this song with such pathos, inversely reflects on the great love and affection they must have shared. The beautiful moments of togetherness, sweet whispers and boldly expressed emotions must have been the theme of their love. Even as he bemoans the end of this celebration of love, inwardly we join in with his cries and shed silent tears for bygone good times.
Suddenly my eyes flit back to the song lines and I stop: the intent of the writer suddenly seems clear, and my heart leaps up as revelation seems to hit me. It is not only not an angry burst over a broken relationship, it seems that it is also not really bemoaning wonderful yester-days and the beauty of celebrated love that has now been cruelly brought to an end with his death. It actually seems to be an expression of deep grief over the present task that the lover has to do – to take one’s loved one to the grave. Here she is being asked to play a most dreadful role asked of any lover – to be the one to take her lover to the grave. She dreads this and weeps over this task of walking with the love of her life for the last time and say final goodbyes and hence the words of this pitiful song spill slowly out of her mouth.
I can’t but help look above to read the song lines yet again. My mind wanders – could it actually be the first and last expression of a never-expressed love that was just too late and now with her death could only be expressed with words such as these? I see him just another face, one in the huge crowd that made up the funeral procession. Maybe she did not even know about his love for her. Or maybe there was just no death at all? Or maybe these are just lazy words of a song writer who is stringing words to fit a tune-recently-composed with an eye on the charts and the dollars that it may bring!
I forcefully put an end to my wandering thoughts. What do these lines mean, what do they 'really' mean? Or do they 'really' have to have a 'real' meaning!! And even if they did have a 'real' meaning, would I ever know?
Let me change the background picture for you – here is a man dressed smart, holding the hand of his beloved, singing this song and whispering goodbyes into the ears of his dead lover who is waiting to be taken into the funeral carriage for the last ride of her life.
As I re-read the lines of the song again, my heart is now filled with a completely different set of emotions and I gasp and turn my eyes away. If I linger long enough over the words and try to imagine the scene created by the song writer, it reduces me to tears and creates an ache in the heart that does not want to go away. My heart reaches out for the young man and the life he is going to live without his loved one. For him to sing this song with such pathos, inversely reflects on the great love and affection they must have shared. The beautiful moments of togetherness, sweet whispers and boldly expressed emotions must have been the theme of their love. Even as he bemoans the end of this celebration of love, inwardly we join in with his cries and shed silent tears for bygone good times.
Suddenly my eyes flit back to the song lines and I stop: the intent of the writer suddenly seems clear, and my heart leaps up as revelation seems to hit me. It is not only not an angry burst over a broken relationship, it seems that it is also not really bemoaning wonderful yester-days and the beauty of celebrated love that has now been cruelly brought to an end with his death. It actually seems to be an expression of deep grief over the present task that the lover has to do – to take one’s loved one to the grave. Here she is being asked to play a most dreadful role asked of any lover – to be the one to take her lover to the grave. She dreads this and weeps over this task of walking with the love of her life for the last time and say final goodbyes and hence the words of this pitiful song spill slowly out of her mouth.
I can’t but help look above to read the song lines yet again. My mind wanders – could it actually be the first and last expression of a never-expressed love that was just too late and now with her death could only be expressed with words such as these? I see him just another face, one in the huge crowd that made up the funeral procession. Maybe she did not even know about his love for her. Or maybe there was just no death at all? Or maybe these are just lazy words of a song writer who is stringing words to fit a tune-recently-composed with an eye on the charts and the dollars that it may bring!
I forcefully put an end to my wandering thoughts. What do these lines mean, what do they 'really' mean? Or do they 'really' have to have a 'real' meaning!! And even if they did have a 'real' meaning, would I ever know?
Brainerd Prince
Before writing the section on Epistemology and Methodology
11:10 p.m. 28 July 2008
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