I haven’t done a piece on scraps in a couple of years, so if you didn’t see it back in 2023, here’s a link to where I define it. Basically, stuff that pops into your head without a trigger or other reason. Happens to me all the time. But today I had a weird one.
While I was grocery shopping, a song popped into my head: “May You Always,” by the McGuire Sisters. It peaked on the Hot 100 on January 5, 1959. I haven’t heard for a number of years. I liked it (still do) for the Sisters’ voices and harmony. I could hear it as clearly as though it were on the radio. I had it on my college-years 8” reel-to-real off-the-radio mix tapes, and heard it a lot. So it’s no huge surprise that I remembered not only the melody and harmony but also the lyrics.
Here they are if you’re not familiar with the song. (I suspect a lot of my older readers might be.) Here’s the Sisters singing it. It’s clearly a person wishing another person well. Given who’s singing, it’s no surprise that I consider the lyric’s viewpoint singer a woman. The lyrics don’t say it out loud, but it sure sounds like a breakup song. The relationship is over, and she’s wishing him all the best.
But…why did they break up? She’s wishing for him to find someone to love as much as she loves him. So it wasn’t that he found another girlfriend. People break up for other reasons, sure. But then it hit me in the back of the head: She’s dying. They love one another deeply, but she’s on her deathbed, saying her goodbyes, with nothing but loving wishes that he continue on with his life and find someone new to love.
In reading the lyrics now, that interpretation seems obvious to me. Why?
I’m 73. A fair number of my friends have died. You get into your seventies, and that will happen. It’s part of the curve that we’re on. It’s a little odd that about as many women as men in my social circles have died. But that’s how it is. (Two of the women were, egad—murdered.)
I bring this up only as a reminder that getting old means you see others leave this world much more often than when you’re young. But young women die too—and that seems to lie at the emotional core of “May You Always.” That wouldn’t have occurred to me when I was 30 or 40. Well, it occurs to me now.
Somewhat related, the Dolly Parton/Whitney Houston classic “I Will Always Love You” sounds like a love song, suitable for playing at weddings, etc. until you actually listen to the lyrics and notice the line, “We both know I’m not what you need”… She’s giving up her man so he can find somebody better!
Evidently different circumstances, though…
One conclusion I am drawing about this phenom is that I didn’t listen closely to song lyrics when I was young. I wanted the melody, harmony, and energy of the music; what the lyrics meant mattered a lot less to me.
You can’t make this up… Today our company had their quarterly all-hands meeting, where serious executives discuss the state of the company and (among other things) announce our periodic bonuses. They’ve been playing a song before and after the main presentation, and they’ve been changing it up every year or so. (The world has to move on from Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration” eventually.) This time I did my best to pay attention to the lyrics and understand what it’s about. Let me just say that the actual lyrics to the song are… NSFW. They literally played it at a work event. Clearly somebody was just looking for a bouncy dance number on some playlist and didn’t really give it any thought.
Some 20-years or more ago I wondered how Mom and Dad (Wife’s parents; mine were already long gone) felt about their peer group dying off. I never asked them about it, the question seeming callous.
Well, now I know. Like you, I’m in my 70s, and a good chunk of my peers already left this mortal coil. Of those left, many are not in very good condition.
I am grateful for each day, each meaningful relationship, my family. Life is good.
Take care, my friend.
I’m doing my best, and I’m in tolerably good shape, as is Carol. But there are always people who literally drop dead without warning, like my old friend George Ewing WA8WTE did. And he was only (IIRC) 64.
It never seemed like a breakup song to me, Jeff, although now that you point it out I can see that possibility. I always thought of it as a mother expressing her wishes for a good life to her daughter or son.
Boy, I never thought of that; never having had children may be the reason why. But yes, that would also work.
Elvis often performed “Softly, As I Leave You” in concert. Elvis’ interpretation of the song was of a man on his deathbed, knowing the end is imminent, and writing his final thoughts on a note pad to his wife who has dozed off by his bedside.
I was cleaning up my inbox today and found a note from Jim Novak, who was one of my teachers at IIT for the single semester I attended, in the fall of 1970. The note was 10+ years old so I tried replying, but the note bounced. My mood darkened (my nerd friends will know that a bounced email from an old friend is not a good sign) but I looked for him and, yup, he has left this world:
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/chicago-il/james-novak-10955296
He taught Drafting & Design, which was a fun course and he was a very good teacher. I boggled back in 2015 that he remembered me 45 years later.
There are lots of beautiful songs that take on a new meaning once you know the lyrics. “Mercy Street” is one of them. I like the Miriam Stockley version, though Peter Gabriel (and others) also did it. It’s actually about a woman who is so distraught about her father’s death that she commits suicide.