Monday, October 15, 2012

Say Anything

Peter Gabriel @ the Patriot Center 10-14-2012
Love I get so lost, sometimes
Days pass and this emptiness fills my heart
When I want to run away
I drive off in my car
But whichever way I go
I come back to the place you are

All my instincts, they return

And the grand facade, so soon will burn
Without a noise, without my pride
I reach out from the inside

In your eyes

The light the heat
In your eyes
I am complete
In your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches
In your eyes
The resolution of all the fruitless searches
In your eyes
I see the light and the heat
In your eyes
Oh, I want to be that complete
I want to touch the light
The heat I see in your eyes

Love, I don't like to see so much pain

So much wasted and this moment keeps slipping away
I get so tired of working so hard for our survival
I look to the time with you to keep me awake and alive



--Peter Gabriel In Your Eyes

Yeah, this song brings back huge memories from that movie right in the middle of my college years when good ole' Lloyd Dobler serenades his love Diane Court with this song with a huge boombox over his head:
 
 
 You gotta love that movie if you are of a certain age--and the quest to find that kind of love was a driving force behind many of us after we saw that movie--oh, how naive!  And of course real life comes crashing down, with marriage, kids, work, school, & for many of us DIVORCE when we realized that the men we married were no Lloyd Doblers.  But it's nice to think about how we were back then & perhaps some of us were lucky--we did meet the Lloyds of our dreams. 
 
 And now, 20 some-odd years later, when I've had a bit of life under my belt, it's interesting to look at the lyrics & realize how little they had to do with my life back then--love was so different when we were younger & to me the lyrics aside from the refrain, have nothing to do with Lloyd's love for Diane.  OK all you haters!!  Time to throw some daggers at me.  My interpretation is for mature audiences only!  This song is about a much more mature love.  It's the kind of love that you have after the kids, work, & marriage.  And, because it is such a good song, it could have just as much meaning to the Romeo & Juliet set as well, but I don't think so.  

"And you may ask yourself, 'Where does this highway lead to?'" (heh, Talking Heads--mixed metaphor)  well, I'll tell ya'.
 
Xing Fu & I saw Peter Gabriel in concert last night at the Patriot Center in Virgina for his So tour (25 years later). It was a great concert & it was great hearing the songs that helped define my college years.   Of course he played this song but when I really listened to the lyrics, I was moved in a way that I hadn't been before. Xing Fu & I often remark how hard we work at this relationship--more than we have for any other one we've been in--this song sorta tells that story & how we can get back to the Lloyd Dobler love if we want to.  Particularly the lines:


Love I get so lost, sometimes
Days pass and this emptiness fills my heart
 
 And:
I get so tired of working so hard for our survival
I look to the time with you to keep me awake and alive

Because sometimes we do get lost--and if we don't find the center together again, & work hard to reclaim our love, that is when it fails--letting days pass without communicating that things aren't as they should be.  And the second two lines could be interpreted as just working hard at a job (I don't think so) or working so hard on the relationship--which is how I look at it.  And perhaps looking to the future together & how a relationship is supposed to make the individuals in the relationship better people because of the other. Just my take on it--either way, I sent them to Xing Fu this morning & he got it--as I knew he would.  With the way things have been since we bought the house together, this song was a very good thing to hear last night.  Thanks Peter Gabriel!

Post script:
I had to put my almost 16 year old dog to sleep on Friday, one of the hardest decisions I've ever made.  Buddy was a calm, sweet dog who always had his paw to give.  He is & will be missed.  R.I.P. Buddy.


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