Two overlapping observations about new beginnings:
- Music captures well the emotions associated with new chapters in life
- New Year's epitomizes, almost perfectly, this idea
old songs about new years
in no particular order (I just like numbering things)
1. New Year's Eve by Five Iron Frenzy
Some lyrics:
It's New Year's Eve and I'm full of empty promises I half-pretend to keep this time, just like last year.
This New Year's Eve I'm waiting for tomorrow. My heart is on my sleeve, and yes I still believe this New Years Eve will turn out better than before. I'm holding on, still holding out until they close the door... on me.
A year goes by and I'm staring at my watch again, and I dig deep this time for something greater than I've ever been, life to ancient wineskins. And I was blind but now I see.
This New Years Eve, something must change me inside: I'm crooked and misguided, and tired of being tired. This New Years Eve, I'm waiting for tomorrow. My heart is on my sleeve, and yes I still believe... in You.
Some thoughts:
I didn't want to bombard you with all the lyrics, so you may not get the real gist from the excerpt above. But this song, to me, is about the futility of hoping in positive change just because a new year is dawning. After the pointless pattern of making resolutions and then forgetting them, he finally realizes that real change happens inside and is brought about by God.
2. Next Year, Baby by Jamie Cullum
Some lyrics:
Next Year,
Things are gonna change:
Gonna drink less beer
And start all over again
Gonna read more books
Gonna keep up with the news
Gonna learn how to cook
And spend less money on shoes
Resolutions
Well, baby, they come and go
Will I do any of these things?
The answer's probably no
But if there's one thing I must do,
Despite my greatest fears
I'm gonna say to you
How I've felt all of these years
Next Year
Some thoughts:
Interestingly, this awesome Jamie Cullum song echoes Five Iron's thought about the ineffectiveness of New Year's resolutions. It seems like in the wake of a new era, we feel as if we have the power to significantly change ourselves, but later reality sinks in and we realize we can't. But I like how, in the face of this futility, the singer recognizes he has the capacity to change one thing -- and he identifies his (as yet unspoken) love as his top priority.
3. The Ice of Boston by The Dismemberment Plan
Some lyrics:
Pop open a third bottle of bubbly.
Yeah, and I take that bottle of champagne, go into the kitchen, stand in front of the kitchen window, and I take all my clothes off, take that bottle of champagne, and I pour it on my head, feel it cascade through my hair and across my chest, and the phone rings...
And it’s my mother.
And she says “HI HONEY HOW’S BOSTON?”
And I stand there, all alone on New Year’s Eve, buck naked, drenched in champagne, looking at a bunch of strangers.
Uh, looking at them, looking at me, looking at them, and I say:
“I’m fine Mom—how’s Washington?”
Some thoughts:
This is one of the funniest songs ever, or at least one of the funniest songs about depressing failed love. The guy moved to Boston to be with a girl, but she later dumped him, leaving him alone in a huge city. Hilarious, right?!? No, but D-Plan has a way with stories. Note that it's on New Year's Eve that he naturally takes stock of the situation.
Help compensate for my inadequate breadth of musical knowledge
it's nowhere near the breadth of my vocabulary, which includes words like "breadth"
What songs about new beginnings do you love?
Jon
I like this idea...I like new beginnings and I love songs that capture exactly how you're feeling about a specific thing.
ReplyDeleteActually, when I was reading this, the song that popped into my head was John Mayer's Wheel. While it isn't about a New Year exactly, it definitely resonates with me about endings and new beginnings. I love this John Mayer song, particularly, because I feel it starts sort of melancholy thinking about an ending, but concludes on a more positive note focusing on the future.
This particular verse makes me think of endings. Things change and evolve; time moves forward and we can't expect anything different:
And you can't build a house of leaves
And live like it's an evergreen
It's just a season thing
It's just this thing that seasons do
And then, at the end, I really get the feeling of letting go of whatever has ended and looking towards the future with hope:
You can't love too much, one part of it
I believe that my life's gonna see
The love I give
Return to me
Good post, Jon =)
What's the need for more suggestions? You've already got FIF on the list.
ReplyDeleteWell, here's a few songs I came up with that I enjoy. These are songs about new beginnings because I agree that New Year's is meaningless and arbitrary.
1. No list of songs from me would be complete without Pink Floyd, so let's go with their version of the cliché birth metaphor: "Speak to Me / Breathe"
2. "Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)" (pick your favorite version: The Byrds or Pete Seeger or someone else). Awesome, if for no other version, due to the Ecclesiastes reference.
3. "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles, another staple of any Will Mc songs list.
Good songs about the end: "Carry Me Down" by Demon Hunter, obligatory Pink Floyd song ("The Great Gig in the Sky" no lyrics, but a great song about the end), obligatory Beatles song ("The End" for the name and the great ending line "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make"), and for good measure FIF's "That's How the Story Ends"
As it turns out, I don't think I've got any songs that deal with New Year's directly. I do have some that deal with new beginnings and that's plenty close enough.
ReplyDeleteFirst up, with a classic rock/spaceship sound, "Don't Look Back" by Boston. For some reason, I've always enjoyed road trips and just getting in the car and driving; I say it's "car-thartic" but then I'm kinda nerdy. Now, the choice lyrics:
"Don't look back, a new day is breakin
It's been too long since I felt this way
I don't mind where I get taken
The road is callin, today is the day
...
Now I see what I am is holding me down
I'll turn it around
I finally see the dawn arrivin
I see beyond the road I'm drivin."
The second selection is a nice little ditty by a band 'straight outta ... well, not Compton' - actually quite a bit further north, say, Bellingham, WA: Death Cab for Cutie's "The New Year." Now you may be sitting there, thinking, 'wow, that's so 2005' and you may well be right. But I take solace in the fact that, like many hipsters before me, a movement of which I am not a member though my music collection would deceive, I can honestly say that I was listening to them back when "you'd pro'ly never heard of them." And no, I didn't wear Wayfarers with zero prescription lenses; I've needed ocular support since 4th grade. Just don't tell anyone I'm wearing real Rx Wayfarer sunglasses now, though. They'll think I'm being ironic.
Anyway, the lyrics, which I enjoy for the notion of accepting the reality of an arbitrary day on which our calendar cycles, and yet still aspiring to progress:
"So this is the new year.
And I don't feel any different.
The clanking of crystal
Explosions off in the distance (in the distance).
So this is the new year
And I have no resolutions
For self assigned penance
For problems with easy solutions
So everybody put your best suit or dress on
Let's make believe that we are wealthy for just this once
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
As thirty dialogs bleed into one
I wish the world was flat like the old days
Then i could travel just by folding a map
No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways
There'd be no distance that could hold us back."
I'm sure I've got more, but you know what? They're hard to track down in my library, since I'm rarely looking for "new start" musical accompaniment, despite having had quite a large number of "new starts." Maybe I'll add more when I come across them. That said, I highly recommend the entire repertoires of Brand New and The Black Keys, as well as Murder By Death's "Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them?" and "In Bocca al Lupo" which are theme albums, "Bocca" feeding off "Who Will Survive."
As should be common knowledge about me, I have long believed that the Smashing Pumpkins are the greatest band in history. This is not my opinion, but rather, a fact. :)
ReplyDeleteAccordingly, I will supply excerpts from one of their best songs: Muzzle.
For everything I ever said
And everything I've ever done is gone and dead
As all things must surely have to end
And great loves will one day have to part
I know that I am meant for this world
My life has been extraordinary
Blessed and cursed and won
Time heals but I'm forever broken
By and by the way...
And in my mind as I was floating
Far above the clouds
Some children laughed, I'd fall for certain
For thinking that I'd last forever
But I knew exactly where I was
And I knew the meaning of it all
And I knew the distance to the sun
And I knew the echo that is love
And I knew the secrets in your spires
This was mainly just an excuse to mention the awesomeness of the Smashing Pumpkins, but some comments:
This song perfectly captures some of the key feelings of new beginnings
1. Accepting that great things in life will often end; that's just the way the world works
2. Following an ending, you can reflect on both the blessings and curses of your life
3. Time can heal many of your wounds, but not completely; in a sense, you will be "forever broken" by your past as you head into your new beginnings
4. In retrospect, you probably should have been more prepared for this ending, but life made sense/felt great, so you wanted to remain "floating far above the clouds" for as long as possible, hoping it wouldn't end [there were a lot of commas in that sentence...]