Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Here Comes the Sun

It’s seems odd and ironic that my first Blog of 2010 would be thoughts on my own demise. I’m not a particularly morbid person, to me; thinking about dying is about as interesting and productive as thinking about the utility bill.

Yet, it is the very inevitability of death that occasionally encourages us to contemplate the how, when and where of it. When we do let ourselves think about I imagine most of us hope it’s a sudden and painless affair. Of course, all we really know is no one’s going to escape it. Stop smoking, lower you cholesterol, eat healthy, take vitamins, exercise, we can forestall the unavoidable, but we know what’s coming; healthy, sick, obsessed, at peace, risk takers, safe and steady’s, rich, poor, powerful and powerless; however we define ourselves, it’s something all living things have in common. Ultimately, it is an effective motivator; without the looming truth of the reaper rapping at our door why would we bother to get anything done? Why do today what we’ve got an eternity to do later?

Having said all that, I was driving home the other day and just as I entered the highway, “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles comes on the radio. Oddly, I remember thinking, “If I was going to die in a car crash I’d want this song to be playing on the radio”. As you can see, I arrived home safely at my door but it made me wonder, if we could pick one song and we knew it’d be the last song we would ever hear; if we were given the gift of music while leaving this world, what would your last song be? Ever since that moment, I’ve thought more about what an odd choice it is rather than the fact, that I would have such a morbid thought to begin with.

To me it’s a song about faith, about the yin-yang of it all. It’s a song not so much about joy, but of hope. Why at the very moments the lights are going off, do I want to hear a song about the sun coming out? It occurs to me, perhaps it’s because then I know I really am or was part of the continuum. There’s this long string that reaches all the way back and all the way forward; far beyond any grandiose notion of my own sense of import. It’s as if, on the one hand, I’m reminded that in the vastness of human existence I’m just a tiny grain of sand, and at the same time, an amazing reassurance that we needn’t be more than a tiny grain of sand.

That I might choose a Beatles song is the least surprising of all. When I was child my best friend who lived across the street had this cool, hippy older sister- we spent hours listening and dancing to her record collection and that’s how I first heard them. I got my first Beatles album when I was five. Really, I did! I played that record ad nausea – that record was all I wanted for my birthday and God bless my parents they got it for me. I fell in love with the Beatles; turns out I wasn’t alone, nor was I the first generation to.

To this day, when I listen to the Beatles I still try to figure it out. Not the music per say, not the structure or anything technical- but the universal quality, the eternalness of it. What was it about what those four guys (along with George Martin) created that just can’t be defined, nor limited to define - a single generation, time, place, country or culture?

Walk into a room, literally anywhere in the Western World, put the Beatles on and watch ,or rather listen, to a myriad of generations all singing along, everyone in the room knows every word. I’d bet more Americans can sing any number of Beatles songs front to back and they still don’t know every word to the Star Spangle Banner; and who doesn’t imagine the Dali Lama tapping his foot and singing along to “All You Need is Love”? It’s my belief that the Beatles not only tapped into the collective consciousness. They somehow merged with it.

Now that I think of it, “Here Comes the Sun” really would be a perfect song for one’s final moments, no matter how the story ends; because as surely as one persons story ends, someone else’s story is just beginning. No matter what happens or when, no matter how long or dark the night has been; someone somewhere will wake up the next morning and the sun will be right there to greet them; and that’s the beauty of it. But that’s just my song of choice. I am curious, what yours would be?