Hello all (and esp to Fatima, who I wanted to get the time to write goodbye, but you were back before i got the chance!)

I have been thinking about and working on happiness and the state thereof quite intently as of late, and I think that it very much has to do with the perspective we approach life with: i.e. if we focus on others to make us happy, the power and ability for us to be happy then is given over to the "others." But if I approach life that it is my perspective that makes me happy, then I am in control of deciding whether to be happy or not.

I recently came across a powerful parable: imagine a huge piece of graph paper, 5 feet by 6 feet. One single square in the paper is filled in black. Where would your eye be drawn? To the black, of course! Or rather, to the contrast of the white and black. But the portion of white far outnumbers the amount of black on the page!

If we think about it, the black represents what is going "wrong" in our lives, what we are unhappy with. Even if it is of vast importance to us, we tend to not focus on the majority of things going right! For example, i may be in an argument with a friend, and that is indeed very upsetting, but the fact that millions of enzymatic chemical reactions are occurring constantly in my body to keep me alive and functioning is really enough to keep me ecstatic, IF I choose to focus on this! Not to mention I have food, a home, a bed, (which not everyone in the world can say!) SO even if being in a fight is EXTREMELY painful, there is still so much in my life that is positive, by my focus (and refocus, and refocus) I can stay happy despite the pain!

Getting to Anniversary, I originally wrote that this was a song that altho sombre, was hopeful at the end. I think this is so because of the line, "make the time/for all your future revelries" Because there WILL BE more good, more experiences to add to the list of positive memories people can revel in! That's how i understood the lines, anyway....

Sorry for rambling so, but i guess i am making up for my quiet lurking for so long

Miriam K

PS I wish Suzanne and all the crew a comfortable as well as positive tour!!!

dear spikey, anna and miriam,

let me please clarify some things:

spikey, i knew what you meant. my comment was addressed to the theory described in the book you mentioned.

anna, sorry to be so blunt, but don't you know by now what i think of past, present and future and how i view their interaction? just think of what i wrote on my last post: "you must look back to be able to look ahead and then you just look forward to". doesn't that tell you that the present must contain and accept the past so that future can be paved alongside? they're all interconnected to me. and my questions are just an expression of my struggle, not of my disbelief.

and finally, miriam, i believe that happiness can only be found within us. haven't i been saying this, in one way or another, through my writings of suzanne's songs? i always try to keep perspective and focus in mind about this issue. and, again, the fact that i'm asking questions, mainly to myself, means that i'm *trying* to keep my perspective and my focus during a difficult time and that i believe in them. i just don't believe in the control of decision you talk about. a lot of life is too complex for things to happen just like that.

as to anniversary, scroll back a bit and see what i wrote about it originally. to me, this song is about hope throughout, and not just because of its final verse, which, by the way, suzanne changed, as i mentioned before. even in the midst of the debris of something really bad and dark, hope and promise can be found on "each corner" and "each street". the question is, to me: even if i know they're there, are hope and promise within my reach now? i feel i have to struggle to get to them because those corners and streets are all blurry right now. but that's life and i accept it like that.

love to all,
fátima

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

dear anna and miriam,

upon reading my last post again i realize that i might have sounded crabby towards you both. if i have i'm sorry. it wasn't my intention at all. i was just trying to get my point across and, above all, the feelings i'm struggling with at this time in my life.

love,
fátima

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

today i'm living within a "marching dream". my soul keeps pace with every step of every one. one and all. marching across a wounded field. and i'm listening and i wish. so very hard. and i carry a photograph of a city. and in it i can see each corner and every street. my heart beats in remembrance and in hope. and i dream of every tick of time and the stories it holds. a show and tell. i wish i could write it all down. make a path out of words and names and faces and gestures. a road in your mind which would defy erasing and would always get you somewhere. the present is so present now, so here, in our faces. so big.

"make the time for all your private memories / your future revelries".

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

Funny, Fatima, how your words fuel the strange feelings I've had over the last year, some of which I've written about right here. There is the marching thing again, my desire to know people and places, and remember them all; and all these feelings come out when I listen to Pilgrimage (also has the marching thing in it) and the Marching Dream.

Spikes

i should've known better since i myself wrote about it in this very same thread: the last verse of "anniversary" should now read like this:

"make the time for all your private memories / they live on every street

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

"anniversary" is a song always present in the soundtrack of my mental landscape. it's in my mind's stereo and it plays whenever i need to center myself. for the last couple of months the verse "clear the way for all your possibilities" has been like a mantra to me. i remember the words from "rosemary" (another song i return to a lot), "those possibilities within her sight / with no way of coming true", and while i know that "some things just don't get through / into this world, although they try", i believe so much in the process of clearing the way for something to possibly come into existence. it might not come into being, but making way for a chance of it getting through makes a huge difference. possibilities "live on every corner / live on every street" and i wholeheartedly embrace clearing the way for a chance of their fruition.

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

run into this thought by jean-paul sartre some days ago: "freedom is what you do with what's been done to you".

this is so true and it made me think of "anniversary". after the acceptance of being within the maze of something dark, what is it that you do? will you choose to try and find some kind of beauty after a crime? will you be willing to embrace that choice? in the end, that's really a matter of freedom. 

 

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

I read this other quote a few days ago: "time is how you spend your love" (from a poem by Nick Laird, quoted by his wife Zadie Smith in her novel "On Beauty").

Anniversary is about this too in a way. We celebrate anniversaries also to keep in mind that time is passing, and to remember how we passed it, to remember the love we put in what we've been doing and the love we have for the people that have been with us in such time. And to remind ourselves that we should try and spend our time in the best possible way. Because wasting it would be like wasting our love.

Miki 

Maybe someone in management can gather this and other songs into a subforum for B&C.

Anonymous:

"anniversary", as a song, is one of those rare cases of expressions of art to which you almost immediately apply the word "classic". i do, anyway, just like i did and do to "rosemary".

together with "cracking", "rosemary" and "penitent", "anniversary" is already essential to landmark my life.

 

Totally agree wit that. The song is overwhelming and once you have heard it, something has changed in your life somehow.

I think Suzanne is at her highest here with words. For example,

Thick with ghosts, the wind whips round in circuitries

the alliteration in  | w | and assonance in | i | makes you feel and ear the wind, like a lament all about.

The association of thick and ghosts is also brilliant, almost an oxymoron, that gives a physical sense of their presence.

 
Back to the argument about the meaning of the song, I'd say  the song operates so strongly because it is also something most peole live once in their life. When somebody dies, sometimes you can really feel him/her still being there. I could ear their voices calling my name at unawares in various places, on different times in my life. That's the way I understand 'They live on every street', at least.

So, this is what brings us hope in some way: the dead are not lost, they're all around as long as we don't forget them and they give us the strength to go on. It's like another layer of life under or above the  everyday reality, beyond time.
 

 

cantabile, just for the record, i'm the one responsible for the words you quote above, under 'anonymous' (for some unknown reason the system doesn't recognize any of my posts from 2003). i wrote them almost 4 years ago, when "anniversary" appeared as a demo, and i continue to stand by them. 

you can see what this song means to me if you go through the whole thread, since i've been writing about it often through the years and will continue to do so. suzanne's songs are never totally discovered. 

its lyrics, by themselves alone, are pure poetry, and the words carry their own melody with the help of, among others, the elements you refer to. so it's as if, to me anyway, there are two melody lines gracefully intertwined within this song. one, that of the lyrics, feels more physical, more grounded, with lots of references to daily actions. the other, that of the melody itself, feels suspended, in the air, blowing by every corner and street. it's their perfect combination that, to me, brings about the sense of uplift that emerges in this song.

  

 

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

I'm not sure if I can dare saying that... though I really like the version on Retrospective, I just can't stand the version on Beauty & Crime... the choirs, the soft wispered "ah-ah". That's all a little too soft and sweet and folky to me, and often I skip the track.

The really very poetic lyrics, the melody, yes, that's quite fine for me; but the way it is produced on B&C, that's sometimes just too much.

Sorry, but...

Moni.
 

 

moni, you have every right to dare say what you feel. i actually can see your point, though i don't agree with it. when i first compared the production of "anniversary" with the ones of the other songs on "beauty & crime", i felt it was the more contained, the more respectful of the demo, so to speak.

suzanne turned "unbound" upside down and experimented on "new york is a woman" and "edith wharton's figurines", to name the ones i'd known just acoustically before. so why was she so self-contained, i wondered, on "anniversary"? here's my take: this song, just like "rosemary", demands containment and respect for what is already there (see what i wrote above). you argue that the chorus and the background vocals are too soft and sweet and folky. that's one way to feel it. i feel they stay true to the spirit of the song, giving it an element of lightness which contrasts with the heaviness of the lyrics' meaning (my point on the post above).

but, moni, these are just opinions, points of view. there are no rights or wrongs. you said why you don't like it and i say why i do. and that's fine and healthy, as far as i'm concerned. thanks for daring.

love, fátima 

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance

ps: i missed your "nothing much (not much)".

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chance is the only thing that doesn't happen by chance