Having just returned from a trip into the past, visiting friends and places I haven’t seen in over a decade, I admit it didn’t go quite as I had hoped. I did not expect everything to be the same, but I wasn’t prepared for the things that had been turned upside down nor the way some people just don’t change at all. The place was overrun with ugly new ‘high density’ developments where once a talented family of potters and musicians lived and created beauty, and my old friends were much the same, except their quirks were no longer so quirky. They were the mostly the same; I was not. I had changed, from a fun loving friend into a somewhat paranoid oldster. We tried to resurrect our shared past, but too much had happened and we found that we didn’t have the same easy camaraderie. We still had warm feelings, but wishing that the world of yesterday would magically return only drove it home: you can’t go home again. The world of yesteryear is alive only in our memories. We may cherish them, but today is uncharted territory.
I suspect that I’m not alone in feeling that everything has changed during the last three years and that there’s no going back. We’re all trying to figure out this ‘new reality’ while still mourning for the old one. For me, this adjustment is painful and memories of how much better our previous life was can assault me at odd moments, as when I tried to get a simple boarding pass from a completely incompetent airline employee. It took three people and twenty minutes. Plus $50 bucks for my luggage. Didn’t we used to get one free checked bag on every flight? Yeah, we did but that was yesterday. An old Beatles song, Yesterday, comes to mind; one that you likely know. It’s perfect for this moment of nostalgic reckoning.
In the spring of 1965, Paul McCartney woke from a dream that gave him the entire two minute hit wonder, complete with these lyrics:
Yesterday all my trouble seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay
Oh I believe in yesterday
Suddenly I’m not half the man I used to be
There’s a shadow hanging over me
Oh yesterday came suddenly
Why she had to go
I don't know, she wouldn't say
I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday
Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide awayOh I believe in yesterday
The first stanza doesn’t need to be changed to reflect our current cultural malaise except for ‘man’. It could scan as
Suddenly, I’m not half the me I used to be.
And allow me to suggest a few more contemporary edits to the second stanza:
Why they had to lie, I don’t know
they wouldn’t say.
We did nothing wrong, now I long for yesterday
Yesterday, life was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh I believe in yesterday
I may believe in it but I can’t live there. I hope some new incarnation of McCartney has a new dream and comes up with the song we need now. We do need a new song for a new, dangerous age. Perhaps it’s already out there? If you know what it is, drop me a line…