Item: 1 CD - A Hard Day's Night, by the Beatles
Sometime about 5 or 6 years ago, I was walking around in downtown DC at lunchtime. This would have been, I believe, at 13th and F, on the corner where the Shops at National Place are, where a South American folk band often stood and played. On this 1 particular day, I was walking by the band just as they were apparently finishing a break, and the leader looked at me and signaled the band to start the next song. I remember this because I had the definite impression that whatever they were about to play would contain a message for me, and I desperately wanted one, because I couldn't make any sense of what had happened to my life. The traffic sounds got muffled, the crowds shifted, as if the whole universe was aligning itself to tell me something.
The song that they played on this particular day was the Beatles song "Let It Be," which was almost crushingly disappointing to me because I don't like this song, never have. If you are receiving an omen from the universe in the form of a song, you pretty much want it to be a song you like. Think of all the songs, even just all the Beatles songs, that a girl could have played for her on a street corner at a crucial moment. But for me they played "Let It Be." Which was just like telling me that my troubles were far from over. I had hoped for a shift, a resolution, a hopeful sign that things would start to turn and go my way soon, but clearly they weren't going to.
It was a winter day, and I continued walking silently with my hands in my pockets. I had gotten my message, and all I could do was take it, and continue to be frustrated at the seeming cross-purpose of everything around me. There was something else I could have taken from this song, but I didn't. I was too mad. Was it obvious to this random band, even if not to me, that there was something I needed to let go of?
I suppose the reason I never cared for this song is that it's not an attitude that comes naturally to me. If things are all wrong, you don't just say oh well, let them be. You fight them as much as possible. You provoke them, you examine them from all angles, you wrestle with them every day and night until one of you gives. Most of all, you fix things. You plot and plan and do whatever it takes to fix things, and if that plan doesn't work, you try something else.
But the musicians were right: at some point I had no choice but to understand that not everything can be fixed, at least not by me alone. This song has surfaced here and there in the years since, not quite with such immense-seeming implications but usually when I'm either unhappy or angry. I've almost been forced to laugh because I heard it playing in Morocco, then came back and heard it in a restaurant, and then last week it came on in the car. This stupid song dogs me everywhere I go.
"Let It Be" is not on the Hard Day's Night album, by the way. I like all the songs on A Hard Day's Night. These are fun songs, songs with good associations, but I don't have a relationship with them the way I do with "Let It Be." When the night is cloudy, there is still a light that shines on me. You can't arrange these things.
The song that they played on this particular day was the Beatles song "Let It Be," which was almost crushingly disappointing to me because I don't like this song, never have. If you are receiving an omen from the universe in the form of a song, you pretty much want it to be a song you like. Think of all the songs, even just all the Beatles songs, that a girl could have played for her on a street corner at a crucial moment. But for me they played "Let It Be." Which was just like telling me that my troubles were far from over. I had hoped for a shift, a resolution, a hopeful sign that things would start to turn and go my way soon, but clearly they weren't going to.
It was a winter day, and I continued walking silently with my hands in my pockets. I had gotten my message, and all I could do was take it, and continue to be frustrated at the seeming cross-purpose of everything around me. There was something else I could have taken from this song, but I didn't. I was too mad. Was it obvious to this random band, even if not to me, that there was something I needed to let go of?
I suppose the reason I never cared for this song is that it's not an attitude that comes naturally to me. If things are all wrong, you don't just say oh well, let them be. You fight them as much as possible. You provoke them, you examine them from all angles, you wrestle with them every day and night until one of you gives. Most of all, you fix things. You plot and plan and do whatever it takes to fix things, and if that plan doesn't work, you try something else.
But the musicians were right: at some point I had no choice but to understand that not everything can be fixed, at least not by me alone. This song has surfaced here and there in the years since, not quite with such immense-seeming implications but usually when I'm either unhappy or angry. I've almost been forced to laugh because I heard it playing in Morocco, then came back and heard it in a restaurant, and then last week it came on in the car. This stupid song dogs me everywhere I go.
"Let It Be" is not on the Hard Day's Night album, by the way. I like all the songs on A Hard Day's Night. These are fun songs, songs with good associations, but I don't have a relationship with them the way I do with "Let It Be." When the night is cloudy, there is still a light that shines on me. You can't arrange these things.
posted by Karen at 5:06 PM
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