One of my favourite
songs is Hey Man, Now You're Really Living
by Eels. If you don't know it, go and watch it now. The following
post will make more sense if you do. Here's the link
Done?
Good, here's my vaguely related thoughts:
I
find the song incredibly uplifting, which is slightly
counterintuitive if you listen to some of the lyrics. “Do
you know what it's like to care too much about someone that you're
never gonna get to touch” and
“Do you know what it's like to fall on the floor and cry
your guts out till you've got no more” sit
alongside more obviously happy-happy-joy-joy lyrics like “Have you
ever sat down in the fresh cut grass, thought about the moment and
when it would pass”, so it
doesn't look like a particularly happy song on the surface, but I
think this simplistic view misses something important. The song ties
all of these disparate feelings together with the key line “Hey
man, now you're really living”.
Whether
you're experiencing really good shit or really bad shit, you're
experiencing real shit. Extreme emotion at both ends is required to
really be living. I wouldn't appreciate the fresh cut grass, making
love to a beautiful girl or seeing the sun rise over the hill
anywhere near as much if I hadn't also cried my guts out till I had
no more.
When
you're depressed it's easy to forget that there are ups and downs,
that your deepest troughs can be mirrored by equally high peaks. When
you learn to accept that both are equally important parts of your
life, and in a way equally desirable, that's when you're living what
this life is all about. So thanks E, for helping crystallise my
thoughts on this matter. And thanks for writing one of the few songs
that's guaranteed to make me feel better when I'm down.
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