It's not my time
...
I just had one of
my most profound, most consistent and least comprehensible reactions to a song
that I've had for awhile.
I was driving home, singing along to my tjShuffle, and found myself getting
choked up. I was intrigued, but I kept on singing. And then I couldn't sing
anymore because I was crying. Actually weeping. Tears. 
I don't know what that response was coming from. Like I said, it was on my
Shuffle, so it's not like I haven't heard it before or even recently --
probably even earlier today. I don't know what it was about the song that
struck me so especially at that moment.
But it didn't pass quickly. I got home, answered some mail, did some math, made
some calls and then went to revisit what seemed like a disproportionate
emotional reaction. I listened closely to the lyrics, explored the images and
thoughts the artist used them to evoke, and explored my own thoughts and
reactions and what images they evoked for me.
I also took a step back from the tears themselves, because I was also
monitoring my emotional response to the song. I'm a method actor, so I express
feelings from memories as a matter of course, and new triggers are always
interesting. However, I honestly couldn't determine anything -- rage, sadness,
fear or joy -- behind the tears. Maybe sadness and loss more than anything
else, but that didn't really fit my perception of the song.
It didn't change the tears, however, which were as real, heady, strong
and consistent as anything, second, third, fifth time through the song. End of
this process, I felt drained more than anything, and not much closer to a
truth.
The Song
This
song, It's Not My Time by 3 Doors Down, just freeqin'
wrecked me again, because I'd never seen the video for it. Now I have, and ...
wow.
IT'S NOT MY TIME by 3 Doors Down
Looking back at the beginning of this
And how life was
Just you and me and love and all of our friends
Living life like an ocean
Now the current's slowly pulling me down
It's getting harder to breathe
It won't be too long and I'll be going under
Can you save me from this
('Cause) It's not my time,
I'm not going
There's a fear in me
It's not showing
This could be the end of me
And everything I know
Oh, I won't go
I look ahead to all the plans that we made
And the dreams that we had
I'm in a world that tries to take them away
Oh, but I'm taking them back
All this time I've just been too blind to understand
What should matter to me
My friend, this life we live
It's not what we have, it's what we believe
(And) It's not my time
I'm not going
There's a fear in me
It's not showing
This could be the end of me
And everything I know
But, It's not my time
I'm not going
There's a fear in me
Now I know that
This could be the end of me
And everything I know
Oh, I won't go
I won't go
There might be more than you believe
(There might be more than you believe)
There might be more than you can see
But, It's not my time
I'm not going
There's a fear in me
It's not showing
This could be the end of me
And everything I know
But, It's not my time
I'm not going
There's a will in me
Now it's gonna show
This could be the end of me
And everything I know, oh
There might be more than you believe
(There might be more than you believe)
There might be more than you can see
And I won't go
No I won't go down (yeahh)
The song at first blush sounds like the angry sadness of a jilted lover --
plans we made and lost, love like an ocean, it's pulling me under, harder to
breathe, it's not my time, etc.
The video looks to explore the endless pain of losing a child's life,
from the perspective of a parent, crying out for a guardian angel to save them,
to give them another chance.
So legitimately, I might have just finally been paying attention to the ragged
emotion in the singer's voice, because he looks like he's losing it just as bad
as I ever did on the set of the video, delivering the song like a prayer.
But in watching it just now, these were the points I was choking up: 0:50,
1:02, 1:11, 1:40, 1:52, 2:03, 2:19, 2:45, 3:07, 3:14, 3:23, 3:28 and then at
3:56, watching the video for the first time, I completely lost it. Again.
.
LYRICAL PURSUIT
Lyricially,
I seem to get stuck mostly by "This could be the end of me," which
naturally would be sad but I tend to be a little more philosophical about
end-of-life stuff, which anyway is more than a bit academic, statwise, for the
time being.
I thought I was responding politically as well. I mentioned I was searching for
joy as well, and today, Obama was seeming more and more like a winner, and I was
hitting a vibe at "I look ahead to all the plans that we made, and the
dreams that we had. I'm in a world that tries to take them away, oh, but I'm
takin' 'em back." As well as, "My friend, this life we live it's not
what we have. It's what we believe."
I thought I might have been feeling a gash of hope for the future in that
lyric, and in that moment, in that interpretation, I might have been, but I
don't think that's what the singer had in mind at all.
In the CARDS
Then I
turned, as I so often do, to the possibility that this was a spiritual
response. And I can see Christ singing this in Gethsemane, and certainly it
explores a call of longing and distance, but something felt off about that as
well. So I did a consultation, and got this:
Providing a base
for the reading is the Hierophant, a figure obeisant to religious authority, a
true believer in the power of faith and spiritual tradition. This forms the
ground for the Magician, a practicer of craft, and a sort of showman. That is,
the Hierophant trafficks in faith, while the Magician is removed a step or two
from actual belief. In fact, he could conduct a service without any belief
whatsoever, while the Hierophant's every move is steeped in his faith.
We resolve in the Nine of Wands in its inverse position, and frankly this
puzzled me. The inverse of the Nine of Wands for this deck, "The Secrets
of the Necronomicon," is delay, doubt, elusive victory and need for
vigilance. Very fuzzy. My tendency is to treat inverse positions as cautionary,
but that didn't really speak to the emotions engendered in me by this song.
Another approach is to just examine the opposite of the upright position, and
that one struck me right between the eyes. Upright, the Nine of Wands indicates
unshakable strength. And in the space between the Magician's works without
faith and the Hierophant's faith without works, I feel I may have encountered a
loss of resolve.
... There might be more than you believe ...
More meditation is called for, and perhaps more medication. I have been
off my antidepressants for a few weeks, now, and my emotional skin could be
thinner than what's good for me.
All of that being said, however, I freeqin' love any song that can get me this
intrigued and choked up. I first encountered this song a couple of weeks ago
driving home from work. I was drawn in by its melancholy sound, and I tracked
it down and pulled it up on iTunes. I've been listening to it ever since, but
clearly not as closely as I did today.
Sure other songs have gotten emotional responses before, but the last one even
close to this, I have to go back to Tori Amos' 2001 release of "Strange
Little Girls," and her cover version of "Rattlesnakes," which
would cause me to break down at the same place every time, even though I
couldn't tell what she was singing.
I found out when she performed the song on Leno and there was closed
captioning. She was singing: "It's so hard to love when love was your
great disappointment."
Whoa. A Buddhist friend of mine suggested even if my head couldn't understand
the lyric, that my heart could, and responded.
* looks back, shudders *
Sorry about all that. I ... well, it interested me, anyway. Happy listening, and
thanks for stopping by. 