In her song called Maman, Louane, a 20-year-old French singer, sings about how we pass dull, tedious days in resignation and desperation. We sometimes feel so trapped in the net of circumstances that we get passive-aggressive. We get to express indirectly our negative feelings of anger, distrust or frustration by procrastinating, showing indifference to what’s going on around us, or distracting our own attention from what really matters. Then we are led into a cul-de-sac, where we are getting weary of reaching out for what we should be.
フランスの若き歌姫ルアンヌは、「ママ」という曲で、あきらめと投げやりな気持ちの中で、ただただ毎日をこなしていってしまうわたしたちの姿を歌っています。あまりにも、身の回りの状況にがんじがらめにされているがために、様々なことに対して、ある意味、逆ギレ気味になってしまうことがあります。怒りや不信や葛藤といった暗い感情を、間接的に表現しようとするのです。それはズルズルと物事を後回しにしてしまったり、身の回りのことに無関心を装ってみたり、大事なことから目を逸らしてみたり。そして、袋小路に陥り、こうしなきゃという気持ちにただただ疲れてしまったりもするのです。
In this song she calls on her mother to help her make sense of what she is. She knows this is not right but has no idea what to do. There is good rhyming throughout the lines, but some of them don’t seem to have as profound meaning as listeners would expect. This disappointment listeners experience, however, is the very emotion we are truly exposed to on a daily basis.
Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve is one of the great songs on bittersweetness of life. This anthem, along with the symbolic music video, brings home to us the inevitable fate of death despite all of our longings.
The Verveの”Bitter Sweet Symphony”は、生きることの甘酸っぱさを歌った９０年代のＵＫロックを代表する一曲ではないでしょうか。このアンセムは、様々な憧れがあるけれども、死という動かしがたい運命へ人は歩いてゆくということを、象徴的なミュージックビデオと共に伝えています。
We hope to follow a path we want, but quite often we have no choice but to follow the path we’ve ever been down because we always have certain constraints. Your employers, organizations, family members, your own physical, financial or social constraints wouldn’t allow you to choose to make a change. You feel all the more frustrated and powerless against circumstances.
Ｌ’irrationnel, la nostalgie humaine et l’absurde qui surgit de leur tête-à-tête, voilà les trois personnages du drame.Le mythe de Sisyphe by Albert Camus
非合理的なこと、人間的郷愁、この両者の対峙により生まれる不条理、これが人間存在という劇の三人の登場人物
The song contrasts our inevitable fate and our human longing. We have no choice but to walk toward “the places where all the veins meet” – death – because it’s ” the only road I’ve ever been down.” It’s inevitable truth. It’s beyond our control. It’s not a matter of your willpower. It leads you to get trapped and confined in a way that you feel “I am here in my mold.” But at the same time, the knowledge and experience you have acquired as you get old encourage you to believe in a possibility that “I’m a million different people from one day to the next.” We want to believe that it is our human intelligence and imagination that make it possible to understand human existence in terms of multifaceted composition and to see things from several points of view.
He walks on. It seems that he doesn’t do anything about avoiding obstacles on his way or changing his speed. Just as loss and separation, trouble and hardship, all comes out of the blue, fate is beyond our control. He just walks on while people raise their eyebrows, he knows he runs into trouble and he has no idea how to avoid it. Some of the stumbling blocks can be anticipated but that will not help us to avoid them. We just walk on.
Between his desire to be different and circumstances that tie him to the present situation, he feels trapped and decides to pray, saying “tonight I’m on my knees.” It’s not what he always does. He desperately needs some solace, someone who recognizes him. “But the airwaves are clean and there’s nobody singing to me now.” Fate doesn’t allow you to run away from tormenting truth. Then he walks on, occasionally bumping into obstacles, at a regular pace. Time passes precisely and mercilessly – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year – till the end.
Albert Camus is considered to be a philosopher of absurdity. But it seems that the concept of absurdity is pretty much misunderstood. Absurdity does not mean that life is meaningless, pointless or hopeless. It’s not just a philosophical concept. Rather, it gives us an explanation to our flesh and blood feel of struggling through life.
Mais ce qui est absurde, c’est la confrontation de cet irratiionnel et de ce désir éperdu de clarté dont l’appel résonne au plus profond de l’homme. Albert Camus – Le mythe de Sisyphe
しかし、不条理なるもの、それは対立のことなのだ。理屈や法則で割り切れないのに、明晰性を求めるどうしようもない気持ちが人の心には響いてくるのだ。
Absurdity, as Camus defines it, does not refer to the irrational itself but to a contradicting human desire. We know too well that many things in life come up in a random way but we are obsessed with finding meaning, logic or reason behind them. Our life revolves around a certain circle of supportive and beloved people, some of whom will be gone sooner or later. Even when we want to and make some efforts to follow a certain path of life, life gets an unexpected turn. Nonetheless, we desperately seek the value and meaning in those practices and events in life. That is what Camus calls absurdity.
Another great song called “Si (If)” by Zaz, a French singer, helps us extend the concept of “Home” further. First of all, “Home” exists in relationships. We need others to embody our sense of self. We are not that independent existence. Our existence is like a vessel that carries fragments of other existences, for which we have responsibility in one way and another. It’s a matter of what and who you stand up for, whose shoulder you cry on, whose hand you want to take, what fills your belly. In other word, “Home” can be found where mutuality and interdependence take place.
This song steps further. In a broader sense “Home” lies between reality and possibility. It’s no tangible. It’s something like an imagery. We live our life with a lot of “ifs.” Regrets in retrospect. Anticipations in prospect. On one hand, it could be someone, or some place, whose memories pull you back to a time when you were fully authentic in the presence of, anchored and attached to, that person or that place. On the other hand, it could be a vision that gives you a space and sense of authenticity. Something like a zeal. Some change you want to make in your own life, in human conditions. You build a mental bridge across time and space. What you envisage can be something that helps you stay grounded and tied to the reality. It’s not just something like a hope. It’s something that helps you stay focused on seeing the world honestly and not flee from its harshness while you keep your vision in sight. It’s in-between. It’s in process.
Through interactions with people and with imagery of who we were and will be, we put together puzzle pieces of the whole picture of self, which is also very likely to transform into what we never imagine. That encourages us to look at the concept of “Home” from another different perspective. That will be discussed in the next post.
Zaz, a french singer-songwriter, sings about lost Home in her song, “Si jamais j’oublie”. And what is beautiful about her lyrics is that it says much about the idea that “home is something that is remembered”. Look at the fact that others play a part in the creating of your Home, and you’ll realize you don’t have to carry the world on your shoulders. Crafting and grasping the whole picture of yourself is not a lone job. Look around, and you’ll find a grand body of people you have come across.
ザズは、フランスのシンガーソングライターですが、『Si jamais j’oublie（もしもわたしが忘れてしまったら）』のなかで「Home」について歌っています。歌詞が美しいのは、『「Home」は記憶される』ということについて多くを語っているからです。しっくりくる自分を作るために、ほかの人も役割を果たすと考えると、もう世界の全てを背負いこまなくてもいいのです。自分を作り上げ理解する作業は、一人でできる作業ではありません。見回してみると、これまでに出会った様々な人々が見えてくるのではないでしょうか。
We all struggle to feel right and establish ourselves in this world while trying to stay true to ourselves. It’s a tough job. Much worse, we have no idea who we are at all as long as you try to see yourself without a mirror. You need others to fully embody your identity. You can attain a sense of self in relationship to others. All kinds of interactions help make up who you are. What you said, what you write, what you cried for, who you laughed with, and who you lend your hand to. All that you bring out leave something to others and sink in, more or less. We can only belong and be truly heard in relationship.
What is it like to be without home? Knowing that you are OK without anything or any place you can be fixated to, you still, deep down, search for a shore to moor yourself at. What is it that makes you so desperate? Fruitless efforts and “shore” metaphor have led me to one of the lines from a song by Paula Kelley. It says:
How many times must I throw the line before this tiny ship comes crashing to the shore? Tell me, how many times must I say goodbye before I start believing it for sure?
このちっぽけな船が岸辺にたどり着くまでに いったい何回ロープを投げなきゃいけないの？
よしっこれだ！と思えるまでに いったい何回さよならを言わなきゃいけないの？
Searching for home seems somehow easy for some people and pretty hard for others. Why not look into another great song of Paula Kelly, “I’D Falling In Love With Anyone”, to think about what is nagging us?
「Home」を何故だか楽に見つける人もいる一方で、苦労する人もいる。ポーラ・ケリーのもう一つの素晴らしい曲”I’D Falling Love With Anyone”を探りながら、何が問題なのか考えてみましょう。
The song starts off with the line “You live in fear”. Fear because you are contemplative enough to sense there is something wrong with the outside world. It might be shallowness, ostentation or whatever you see far from the truth – the cold veneer. “The luxury of life so wasted on the vain/A million losing battles can’t explain” All these struggles come to nothing however well-intentioned you are about your decisions and choices. Your deliberate choices, however, have opened up new horizons because “You never see the old within the new”. You are always so thoughtful and eventually so off the beaten path that you face choices all the time to do and not to do. It’s really scary and exhausting. Your fear is that you will never prove your point.
曲は”You live in fear.”「びくびくしながら生きてる」で始まります。考えが深い人だから、外の世界のおかしいところにも気がつく。軽薄さや虚飾、真実とはかけ離れてるように思えるもの全て。つまり、「冷淡で張りあわせのベニヤ板みたいな虚飾」。「人生の豊かさは 無駄に失われていく／何百万もの負け戦の歴史があってもわからない」自分の決定や選択がどんなに考え抜かれたものでも、あらゆる試みも無駄に終わる。しかし、意識的に意思決定をしてきたことが、可能性を広げてくれたりもするのです。なぜなら「なじみのモノは 新しいモノの中には 見つからないわけで」。でも、よくよく考えるうち、楽な道を選ばなくなり、常に選択を迫られるようになる。それは恐ろしく疲れさせるもの。もっとも怖いのは、自分の正しさを証明できないかもしれないという不安。
Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck. – Immanuel Kant
形而上学とは、岸辺も灯台もない暗い海。哲学の難破船、その瓦礫が浮かんでいる。
“The trouble with success or how you fit into the world?” Searching for Home is, more or less, a struggle for recognition and affirmation. Searching for Home is a struggle in a world that seems so closely and seamlessly knitted that you might feel you have to squeeze and fit into it. And your biggest fear is that you will never find it.
But despite its richness and variability, the well-defined world we inherit doesn’t quite fit each one of us, individually… there will always be times when something is missing or doesn’t quite ring true. And so you make your place in the world by making part of it – by contributing some new part to the set. – Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland
The trees let go of their leaves in the autumn. There’s no use of crying over fallen leaves. The season of diminished light is followed by cold and bleak winter. This is how the nature works. Just as birth and death are the key metaphor of shifting season, things come and go throughout life. The sense and presence of home is no exception.
People come and go, too. You can get close to any of them but some will leave you behind for a reason or another. It’s sad but that’s how things go. You may be fixated to one place or another. Home you’ve finally found, however, might be gone sooner or later. You will be bewildered when your world is shaken.
“Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” by a British folk rock band Fairport Convention is characterized by its touch of resignation to the shift and fate. There is no certainty. We have no idea where each moment take us. Are you prepared for this?
イギリスのフォークロックバンド、フェアポート・コンベンションの”Who Knows Where The Time Goes?”には、変化や運命に対するある種の諦観が漂います。確かなものなどない。一瞬一瞬が、自分をどこへ連れて行くのか誰も分からない。心の準備はできているかと問いかけているのです。
Fairport Convention – Who Knows Where The Time Goes?
Feeling anchored and grounded might be one of the keys to describing what it feels like to be at home. You just aware that you have a place of belonging and safety. To grab hold of this concept, why not think a little bit about the absence of home?
A sense of being unmoored takes as many different forms. In terms of home as a system of meaning and belonging, homelessness emerges when your life doesn’t make sense to you partly because you don’t feel your life is fully expressing your individuality. You might whittle yourself down in a way that you just act a given role, settle for a limited image of yourself to get on with life, for fear of rejection and of being outcast. You aren’t just following your own principles or values, not allowing the whole of yourself to be engaged.
In the following song called “Anchor” by Mindy Gledhill, a wanderer has arrived home. Under pressure to conform to something you don’t feel right, she was on the verge of being a lost soul. She’s finally found place in life where she stays genuinely unique and different. Feeling right within your own skin and mind gives sense to the business of living. You feel you matter, you are affirmed and welcome, and you have a sense of purpose. What makes all of these possible might be faith, belief, loved ones, pride in a set of experience through which you fully engage with the world, and whatever you turn to in toughest times.
Let’s listen to the following song called Home written by Gabrielle Aplin. Home. Hearing this word, what comes to your mind? Something tangible or intangible? As the first post for the new series “In Search of Hope”, it must be good to start with thinking about some definitions of the word. Don’t worry! There is nothing difficult involved. To grasp the whole picture, as we all know, nothing is easier and more exciting than listening to a song. Then look into what she says.
Looking at some lines from this song, we see something that defines what home is all about. 1)”Take me away to some place real” refers to home as an outpost of certainty and meaning where you could consolidate your identities. 2)”Where you heart is set in stone” signifies where you find your anchor in existence and feel grounded in the world. 3)”Where you go when you’re alone/Is where you go to rest your bones” indicates spaces where you can recover a sense of self. 4)”It’s not just where you lay your head/It’s not just where you make your bed” indicates that home here doesn’t necessarily mean a physical environment, and 5)”As long as we’re together, does it matter where we go? Home.” indicates some kind of connection and attachment. Overall, this song makes clear that home doesn’t necessarily mean a house or a location but something that you can attach meaning to and your existence is most attuned to.
歌詞のいくつかの行を見てみると、「Home」という言葉の定義が見えてきます。１）”Take me away to some place real「わたしの真の居場所は どこ？」”は、自分らしさをより確かにできるような、確実で意味のある砦のようなものとしての「Home」ですね。2)”Where you heart is set in stone「そこは 心から落ち着けるところ」” は、この世の中に自分という存在を、錨としてどっしり下ろせる場所。3)”Where you go when you’re alone/Is where you go to rest your bones「そこは 寂しいときに帰るところ／そこは 疲れきった身体を休ませるところ」”は、自分を取り戻す空間。4)”It’s not just where you lay your head/It’s not just where you make your bed「ただ 体を横たえたり／眠ったりするだけじゃない」”は、「Home」が必ずしも物理的環境ではないことを示しています。5)”As long as we’re together, does it matter where we go? Home.「わたしたち 一緒にいれば どこへ行ったっていい／わたしの居場所は そこにあるから」”では、つながりや愛着を示しています。全体を通して歌われているのは、「Home」が必ずしも家屋や地点ではなく、意味を付与できるような、自分らしさをもっとも感じられるような何かということになります。
What makes this song particularly striking and beautiful is a dramatic contrast throughout the lines. 1)”I’m a phoenix in the water/A fish that’s learnt to fly” contrasts the impossible and the possibility. 2)”And I’ll bury my future behind”, Wow, comes with the most dramatic effect. We often associate the future with hopefulness and anticipation, but all too often nothing goes as we planned. Then, what the use of mulling over the future? At the end of the day, with every likelihood of uncertainty, what mentality helps us feel grounded? Here is what she says, “It’s just I’d rather be causing the chaos/Than laying at the sharp end of this knife”, “But there’s a shining in the shadows/I’ll never know unless I try”. Who’s gonna light up the dark? It’s you.
この歌を特にドラマチックで美しくしているのは、全編に渡る劇的な対比ではないでしょうか。1)”I’m a phoenix in the water/A fish that’s learnt to fly「わたしは 水に生きる火の鳥／わたしは 飛ぶことを覚えた魚」” は不可能なるものと可能性とを対比しています。2)”And I’ll bury my future behind「未来なんて ここに埋め去ってしまおう」”は、素晴らしい劇的な効果を果たしていますね。私たちは未来というと、希望や期待という言葉を結び付けがちですが、往々にして物事は計画通りには進まない。であれば、未来を思い悩んで何の意味があるのか。では、つまるところ、確実なものは何ひとつないという状況に対して、どのような心持で臨めば、”feel grounded落ち着いて自分らしくいる”ことができるのでしょうか。最後に彼女の言葉に耳を傾けましょう、”It’s just I’d rather be causing the chaos/Than laying at the sharp end of this knife「だから 無様でも構わない こんな刃の前で じっとしているよりは」”, “But there’s a shining in the shadows/I’ll never know unless I try 「暗闇にだって 光が見える／やってみなきゃ 何もわからない」”。では、暗闇を照らすのは誰？それは自分自身。
I would like to add to the list of posts under “Dear Mistakes…” tag this song called “That Day” by Natalie Imbruglia. Her determined and proud look {Read more…} “That Day”
