In 2009 Carina Round released what in my opinion is probably the greatest EP of all time, from which the title and sections of this post get their names. If you've not heard it yet definitely check it out.
Anyway (needless to say) circumstances lately have been horrible, worldwide and personally. I won't dwell on it because there's plenty of doom-and-gloom on the internet already; suffice it to say that in the past month − due to the pandemic − I have lost both a family member and my job.
I realize I am not alone in this, and many others have [had] it much worse. My thoughts and hopes are with all for whom this situation has made the struggle for existence more dire.
1. Backseat
Just a second and we're goneLife is fleeting, we've all heard that cliché. But is it really? Sometimes when we are engulfed in tasks and responsibilities, life seems to drag, and it feels like a fast-forward button would be nice.
Just an imprint when we're done
Could it be true that sometimes life isn't fleeting enough?
And when she says "we're gone" and "we're done" in the lyrics above, what does that mean really?
If we answer with "gone from life" and "done living" this seems only a linguistic or literal completion, since it misses the real gravity of what the words convey.
2. Please Don't Stop
in a carpet made of starsWith regard to the present inquiry, I must stop for a moment to disclose a conflict of interest. Being an individual − or at least believing myself to be − I have always had a very strong feeling that our true selves are not identical with our physical bodies, and therewith that what is going on in someone's mind is infinitely closer to who they are than is the structure or appearance of their body.
I close my eyes and dive in
Obviously I am a dualist at least to a certain extent, although I do not believe that the division between mind and body is as sharp as some would have it [topic for a later discussion].
That being said: the desire to believe in the persistence of individuality after "we're gone" or "we're done" makes the concept of the soul appealing . . . I mean, ultimate survival, right? Able to survive even death!
Imagine the comfort that such a belief might bring...
Apropos, I am in a position to benefit (if indeed the soul does exist as that aspect of an individual which is truly unique and which continues after their physical inanimation) therefore my conclusion on this matter may exhibit unavoidable bias.
3. Thief in the Sky
The storm inside of a heart of concreteThief in the Sky is my favorite song on the EP, and possibly my favorite of all of her songs. In the coda especially, she manages to perfectly capture the feeling of something loved slowly drifting away...
Morning comes around like a thief in disguise
Time like taillights
Always moving away from me
Unrelatedly, it is curious is how often telephonic imagery pops up in this EP and in the follow-up album. In the second verse of this song she sings of a "telephone line," and in the coda she says "telephone wire tie me up." On the EP cover you see her holding a telephone cord and receiver, and then the opening track of Tigermending is called "Pick Up the Phone."
And Things You Should Know doesn't only foreshadow "Pick Up the Phone" via Thief in the Sky, "Pick Up the Phone" also contains the lyrical allusion "The things that you should know are weighing heavy on me" in verse four.
But forgive me for indulging in fandom analyses.
Onto the next track/section/whathaveyou...
4. Do You
I meant every word I saidBlindsided, scatterbrained, albeit focused (in a scatterbrained sort of way) and hopeful.
From deranged to divine
And I would do it all again
As if for the first time
Back in summer 2017 fantasy author L.E. Henderson wrote a post called Hope, and paranormal sci-fi author Dawn Trowell Jones responded with a post called More Hope; and although the hope with which they were primarily concerned was hope in fiction, their insights undoubtedly have bearing on reality.
From Hope:
To present only darkness without its brighter flip side is no more true-to-life than a belief that life is all glitter and marshmallows.
From More Hope:
Hope’s always present in the sense that every circumstance, no matter how exquisitely cruel, miserable, or depraved, must end.
It is great how the authors have expressed these thoughts in a way which kind of reverses the ordinary way of expressing them.
Permanent negativity is just illogical, because the negative is no more permanent than is the positive. In fact the possibility of one implies the possibility of the other.
5. For Everything a Reason
For every ending a new beginningIt has always been very interesting to me how death is simultaneously the most certain and uncertain thing in existence.
. . .
And those who loved before
will be brought back together
It will happen, we know, but we know not what it is.
One thing is for sure however: whatever it is, it is at least that which is devoid of life; and devoid of life is precisely the state which precedes and gives rise to life. In other words, death is at least a return to the source [that which precedes and gives rise to]. So, while death is indeed unknown, we can at least be certain that it is a nexus to the state in which exists the possibility of life.
This reminds me of Bhagavad Gita 2:27:
Death is inevitable for the living;or of Heraclitus, fragment 66:
birth is inevitable for the dead.
Immortals become mortals,To me it doesn't seem like the speaker in For Everything a Reason is telling us things she knows are true (as much as I would like to believe that when listening to the song); instead it seems like she is telling herself things she hopes are true.
mortals become immortals;
they live in each other’s death
and die in each other’s life.
Maybe that's why the song is so impactful, because you can really feel the hope in her voice, the same hope that you're feeling.
Why do we have this hope?
I think that either our survival instinct is so strong we imagine it extending into that next place, or we are actually aware − albeit unconsciously − of an outcome/plain-of-existence that is truly possible.
* * *
Here is some more Hindu wisdom because I do not know how to end this post (Bhagavad Gita 2:22):
As one abandons worn-out clothes and acquires new ones, so when the body is worn out a new one is acquired by Atman, who lives within.