Month: June 2017

Sometimes a song I’ve heard forever takes on new meaning. I know I’m receiving some kind of sign when the music sounds different to me, like it’s reaching out from the radio to touch me. The energy changes and I become alert to the lyrics. This most often happens in my car although it has happened in other places.

I’ve already written about P.O.D.’s “Alive.” Click here if you’d like to read that post (Songs and Signs).

For example, the song “Photograph” by Ed Sheeran took on special meaning one day when I heard some lyrics I had never heard before (in green italics):

Loving can heal
Loving can mend your soul
And it’s the only thing that I know (know)
I swear it will get easier
Remember that with every piece of ya
And it’s the only thing we take with us when we die

It felt like my son talking to me, saying it would get easier and that his love for me did not die. This song had been out for a quite a while but I had never heard those particular lyrics before.

When my son died I posted a bunch of meaningful songs on my Facebook page. They often were love songs, lamenting love lost, but were so relevant to what I was feeling.

I guess loss is loss, no matter how it occurs.

The lyrics to several of these songs follow the end of this post.  Some of these songs spoke of our new spiritual connection, and the necessity for me to embrace Nico’s spiritual form, and let go of his physical form and my old beliefs about death being so final.

If you open your mind for me
You won’t rely on open eyes to see
The walls you built within
Come tumbling down, and a new world will begin

-Queensryche “Silent Lucidity”

This song, by The Fixx spoke to me of our spiritual connection and the lives we will share in the future.

We are passengers in time
Lost in motion, locked together
Day and night, by trick of light
But I must take another journey
We must meet with other names
If you hold me you will hurt me
Be brave

-Secret Separation by The Fixx

One particularly poignant song was “Gone” by Jr.Jr. It seemed to capture my son’s fears of not being able to succeed in his life and his ambivalence about leaving this world.

“Gone”
I’ve made up my mind over and over
Keep pressing rewind but I’m getting older
Tried every door, don’t know who I’m looking for
And I’ve made up my mind over and over

I can’t be everything you want me to be
I can’t be everything you want me to be
Finally, I can see the light through the leaves
But it’s all gone
But it’s all gone

What comes from the ground now is returning
It’s all the same sound and my ears are burning
In some strange home, don’t know who I’m working for
I’ve made up my mind over and over

I can’t be everything you want me to be
I can’t be everything you want me to be
Finally, I can see the light through the leaves
But it’s all gone
But it’s all gone

Over and over, over and over
Over and over, over and over

I can’t be everything you want me to be
I can’t be everything you want me to be
Finally, I can see the light through the leaves
But it’s all gone
But it’s all gone
But it’s all gone

Perhaps the most heartbreaking and personal song was by Ruth B. She seemed to capture my son’s sadness about feeling isolated, misunderstood, and “lost” and his hope about perhaps finding a place where he belonged. These were feelings he did not express verbally, but were apparent, especially after his death.

“Lost Boy” by Ruth B.

There was a time when I was alone
Nowhere to go and no place to call home
My only friend was the man in the moon
And even sometimes he would go away, too

Then one night, as I closed my eyes,
I saw a shadow flying high
He came to me with the sweetest smile
Told me he wanted to talk for awhile
He said, “Peter Pan. That’s what they call me.
I promise that you’ll never be lonely.”
And ever since that day…

I am a lost boy from Neverland
Usually hanging out with Peter Pan
And when we’re bored we play in the woods
Always on the run from Captain Hook
“Run, run, lost boy,” they say to me,
“Away from all of reality.”

Neverland is home to lost boys like me
And lost boys like me are free

He sprinkled me in pixie dust and told me to believe
Believe in him and believe in me
Together we will fly away in a cloud of green
To your beautiful destiny
As we soared above the town that never loved me
I realized I finally had a family
Soon enough we reached Neverland
Peacefully my feet hit the sand
And ever since that day…

I am a lost boy from Neverland
Usually hanging out with Peter Pan
And when we’re bored we play in the woods
Always on the run from Captain Hook
“Run, run, lost boy,” they say to me,
“Away from all of reality.”

Neverland is home to lost boys like me
And lost boys like me are free

Peter Pan, Tinker Bell, Wendy Darling,
Even Captain Hook.
You are my perfect story book
Neverland, I love you so,
You are now my home sweet home
Forever a lost boy at last

And for always I will say…

I am a lost boy from Neverland
Usually hanging out with Peter Pan
And when we’re bored we play in the woods
Always on the run from Captain Hook
“Run, run, lost boy,” they say to me,
“Away from all of reality.”

Neverland is home to lost boys like me
And lost boys like me are free.

____________________________________________

Queensryche “Silent Lucidity”

“Secret Separation” by The Fixx