They're playing our song

Msfitzita on Certainly Not Cool Enough to Blog had a recent post about hearing her dh learning to play Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" on the guitar & realizing the lyrics fit their personal situation perfectly. Coincidentally, my dh also took up guitar in the past few years (part of his midlife crisis, lol) & has also been learning to play "Wish You Were Here." It is a beautiful song -- I understand it was written about the group's founding member, Syd Barrett, who developed mental health problems & became a recluse. He died just last year, I believe.

The lyrics:

So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skys from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to trade
Your heros for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

Music can be so evocative... I hear a certain song & I am instantly transported back to a specific time & place & situation. One of my earliest musical memories was watching The Beatles cartoon show as a pre-schooler (yes, I am dating myself here...), & then jumping up & down on the bed with my cousin Catherine, singing "She loves you, YEAH YEAH YEAH" at the top of our lungs (lol).

Martha & the Muffins, a Toronto band from the late 70s/early 80s, had a monster hit (in Canada, anyway...) with a song called "Echo Beach" that brings back memories of driving out to the lake (18 miles away) with my high school friends & building bonfires on the beach. The refrains repeats the line "Echo Beach, far away in time" and today, those days seem far away indeed.

The Beach Boys' "Fun Fun Fun" reminds me of my high school friend Diane. Her father didn't have a T-Bird & he didn't take the car away, but he did have a hot yellow Camaro (even better than a T-bird for a couple of young girls in the late 70s/early 80s). There was a summer between terms at university when she & I would drive it up & down the main street of our town, night after night. I can never hear that song without thinking of her.

Another Beach Boys song, "Wouldn't it Be Nice," reminds me of dh & the long-distance romance we carried on between the summer of 1982, when he went off to grad school, far from the university where we'd met and where I was still finishing my degree, and our marriage in July 1985.

The song that I most think of as Katie's is "Blessed" by Elton John. I was pregnant with her when I first heard it & it seemed so appropriate, this long-awaited & longed for baby. After her stillbirth, and as we tried (& tried... & failed...) to conceive another baby, the lyrics took on added poignancy (the line about "before I'm too old" just killed me...):

Hey you, you're a child in my head
You haven't walked yet
Your first words have yet to be said
But I swear you'll be blessed

I know you're still just a dream
your eyes might be green
Or the bluest that I've ever seen
Anyway you'll be blessed

And you, you'll be blessed
You'll have the best I promise you that
I'll pick a star from the sky
Pull your name from a hat
I promise you that, promise you that, promise you that
You'll be blessed

I need you before I'm too old
To have and to hold
To walk with you and watch you grow
And know that you're blessed

The movie "City of Angels" was released right around the time of our loss. We didn't go to see it & although dh has seen it on TV & loves it, I've never been able to bring myself to watch. The soundtrack was full of songs that had meaning for us and the other bereaved parents attending our support group -- in particular, "Angel" by Sarah McLaughlin:

Spend all your time waiting
For that second chance
For a break that would make it okay
There’s always one reason
To feel not good enough
And it’s hard at the end of the day

I need some distraction
Oh beautiful release
Memory seeps from my veins
Let me be empty
And weightless and maybe
I’ll find some peace tonight

In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there

So tired of the straight line
And everywhere you turn
There’s vultures and thieves at your back
And the storm keeps on twisting
You keep on building the lie
That you make up for all that you lack
It don’t make no difference
Escaping one last time
It’s easier to believe in this sweet madness oh
This glorious sadness that brings me to my knees

In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room
And the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort there
You’re in the arms of the angel
May you find some comfort here

And also "Iris" by the Goo-Goo Dolls:

And I'd give up forever to touch you
Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now

And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
Cause sooner or later it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight

And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything seems like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know your alive

And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

More musical musings later...