Ever since I was a kid, I have been drawn to songs’ lyrics. If a song contained lines that described something that I connected to deeply, it was much more likely to be an important song for me. When a song could articulate something about me or something I was going through, it becomes a favorite for life. As someone who struggles to articulate what I think and feel, at times, song lyrics can do so much for me. Duran Duran is no exception.
When it comes to Duran, I feel like I’m first drawn to the music. Do I like the overall sound? Does it move me? Then, something special happens when the lyrics really grab me. It cuts deep. It helps me to process, to think, to feel. So the usual pattern, for me, when it comes to new Duran is that I listen a few times and figure out which songs I like the overall sound. Then, a few weeks later, if I’m lucky, I notice a song lyric, a line. In some cases, the lyrics catch my attention because I want to figure them out like a mystery. At other times, it is more than that. Future Past has fit the pattern and I’m definitely in the stage of paying more attention to the lyrics. About a week or so ago, the words for the song, “Future Past” caught my attention. Take a look at them yourself:
rain streams down the window
& I recall the day we ran & how
on Brownsea Island meadow
you couldn’t catch me then – you wouldn’t catch me now
if it’s only memory
echoing down the hallway
in whisper as you come to me
we are growing closer
so don’t you cry
for what will never last
each moment created in time
it’s all a future past
that we are living now
change is coming down the line
I give thanks if that much stays the same
this life is not to our design
could not have known it then – but now I see it plain
if all we are is memory
doorways on a garden
the flowers of a century
we are growing stronger
so don’t you cry
for what will never last
each moment created in time
it’s all a future past
that we are living now
so don’t you cry
for what will never last
each moment created in time
it’s all a future past
so lay your gaze
on what will ever last
each moment in time we create
it’s all a future past
& we are living now
The title of this blog post is the first line to grab me and made me want to go back to the beginning of the song. As I did that, I found myself reading with increasingly blurred vision as tears formed in my eyes. It feels to me that at the heart of the lyrics is this idea of time and how we are living now and creating moments that will soon become the past. This change is always happening and is pretty much the only part of life that we can really expect. As the song moves into the versus that talks about “doorways” and “flowers of a century,” I could not help but think about my aging parents and about history.
My parents mean the world to me and I’m willing to sacrifice pretty much everything in order to care for them but that does not mean that it isn’t tough. While I thankful that they are both still around, it isn’t easy to see how hard living sometimes can be for them as their bodies and minds slow down and struggle. I think about my dad, for instance, and how he is one of only three siblings left in his family of seven children. No one knows how long my dad will be around but what we do know is that time will continue on and that he is and will always be a part of family history. Heck, he is a part of history and, in fact, reflects history. His story tells the tale of a first generation American born to Polish immigrants who moved his way up from the factory floor to middle management in the manufacturing and industrial world of the south side of Chicago in order to provide for his three children. The legacy of his hard work and sacrifice will live on forever through myself, my siblings and my nieces.
Of course, thinking about life, death, future, past, memory, loss feels even more significant during a time in which humanity is going through a mass death event with the pandemic. It leads me to wonder what led to this song and these lyrics. Was it in response to covid? Was it response to Simon losing his mother a few years back? Was it just recognizing the passage of time, especially now that grandchildren are in the picture for a couple of band members? Was it something else?
What about the rest of you? Did this song and its lyrics hit you in a similar way as me or did you think of it completely differently?
-A
