Tag: We May Never Pass This Way (Again)

Songs and Tweaking Our Understanding

In any public place, you’re likely to be surrounded by faces reflecting an unshakeable puzzlement of people who have sleepwalked through life. Songs capture this perplexity. Take “Hier encore” by Charles Aznavour, which has subsequently been translated into a myriad of languages and covered by many artists.

Yesterday, when I was young
The taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game
The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame
The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned
I always built, alas, on weak and shifting sand
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day
And only now I see how the years ran away

Yesterday, when I was young
So many drinking songs were waiting to be sung
So many wayward pleasures lay in store for me
And so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see
I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out
I never stopped to think what life was all about
And every conversation I can now recall
Concerned itself with me, me and nothing else at all

Yesterday, the moon was blue
And every crazy day brought something new to do
I used my magic age as if it were a wand
And never saw the waste and emptiness beyond
The game of love I played with arrogance and pride
And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died
The friends I made all seemed somehow to drift away
And only I am left on stage to end the play

There are so many songs in me that won’t be sung
I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue
The time has come for me to pay for yesterday
When I was young
Young, young…

Notice that “Yesterday, when I was young” is a poetic conceit discussing his youth. Orbiting this thought is a song by Crosby, Stills & Nash, the first of which is “Wasted on the Way”, regretting the singers’ wasted lives. Another is “We May Never Pass This Way (Again)” by Seals & Crofts. These songs tweak our understanding by reminding us in a painful, yet melodious way, that we are all swept along by life’s pressures and events.

Imagine that one is aware of this trend early enough to avoid it and attempts to sidestep this fate. However, there’s a danger on the other side of mindless snarling rebellion, in the vein of Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell”.

Finally, there are musical styles such as Portuguese fado, characterized by mournful tunes and lyrics that straddle the loss of one’s true love and the loss of Portuguese influence in the world, such as Latin America supplanting Portugal as the center of Portuguese culture. In all of these, the “once upon a time” is at the level of youth, one’s romance and eventually life, which “never comes again”.

Perhaps the most sobering line in popular music is “all we are is dust in the wind” (from “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas). One might benefit from a moment of quiet reflection on this lyric.

Songs as an Informal University

We have already seen in “Songs as Another Kind of Parallel University” that trying to revive or rescue enchantment in a “disenchanted world” (Max Weber, “Entzauberung”) is a kind of philosophical “move” in love songs which has much to do with the impact on the West of the medieval troubadours.

Take this masterpiece song from the fifties musical My Fair Lady. Notice the explicit introduction of “enchantment” into the lyrics:

“On the Street Where You Live”

I have often walked
Down the street before,
But the pavement always stayed
Beneath my feet before
All at once am I
Several stories high,
Knowing I’m on the street where you live

Are there lilac trees
In the heart of town?
Can you hear a lark in any other part of town?
Does enchantment pour
Out of every door?
No, it’s just on the street where you live

And oh, the towering feeling
Just to know somehow you are near
The overpowering feeling
That any second you may suddenly appear

People stop and stare
They don’t bother me,
For there’s no where else on earth
That I would rather be

Let the time go by,
I won’t care if I
Can be here on the street where you live

People stop and stare
They don’t bother me,
For there’s no where else on earth
That I would rather be
Let the time go by
I won’t care if I
Can be here on the street where you live,
Can be here on the street where you live,
Can be here on the street where you live

The enchantment of love is also at the center of the song by Seals & Crofts, “We May Never Pass This Way (Again)” from decades ago. In the same way that Jim Morrison and the Doors capture life’s basic randomized “thrownness” (Heidegger, “Geworfenheit”), Seals & Crofts capture life’s one-time ephemerality, as the title signals immediately:

“We May Never Pass This Way (Again)”

Life
So they say
Is but a game and they’d let it slip away
Love
Like the autumn sun
Should be dyin’
But it’s only just begun

Like the twilight in the road up ahead
They don’t see just where we’re goin’
And all the secrets in the universe
Whisper in our ears
All the years will come and go
Take us up
Always up

We may never pass this way again
We may never pass this way again
We may never pass this way again

Dreams
So they say
Are for the fools and they let ’em drift away
Peace
Like the silent dove
Should be flyin’
But it’s only just begun

Like Columbus in the olden days
We must gather all our courage
Sail our ships out on the open seas
Cast away our fears
And all the years will come and go
Take us up
Always up

We may never pass this way again
We may never pass this way again
We may never pass this way again

So
I wanna laugh while the laughin’ is easy
I wanna cry if makes it worthwhile
I may never pass this way again
That’s why I want it with you

’Cause
You make me feel like I’m more than a friend
Like I’m the journey and you’re the journey’s end
I may never pass this way again
That’s why I want it with you
Baby

We may never pass this way again
We may never pass this way again
We may never pass this way again
We may never pass this way again

After deeply drinking in this and other songs, you could become more “attuned” to academic philosophy which would become less of an abstract and insipid blur. Pre-awareness and pre-understanding give you the receptivity you need and you get these from movies and songs and private life. The trick is to use meta-intelligence to straddle the campus and the off-campus worlds.