You are watching: Used to think that it was so easy
I was recently in a bar having actually dinner via a frifinish when Gerry Rafferty’s hit 1978 song “Baker Street” came on. When my friend discussed that he loved the song, I agreed and also provided the song’s effective lyrics.
“Really?” he responded. “I never passist much attention to the lyrics.”
Most world, of course, remember “Baker Street” for its wailing saxophone, and my frifinish was no various. Nor was I, for many type of years. But at some point—I don’t recognize when—I started to pay attention to the song’s lyrics. They go favor this:
Winding your means dvery own on Baker Street
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well, one more crazy day
You"ll drink the night away
And foracquire around everything
This city desert renders you feel so cold
It"s obtained so many type of civilization, yet it"s got no soul
And it"s taken you so long
To uncover out you were wrong
When you thought it organized everything
You supplied to think that it was so easy
You used to say that it was so easy
But you"re trying, you"re trying now
Anvarious other year and also then you"d be happy
Just one more year and then you"d be happy
But you"re crying, you"re crying now
Way down the street there"s a light in his place
He opens up the door, he"s acquired that look on his face
And he asks you wbelow you"ve been
You tell him that you"ve seen
And you talk around anything
He"s gained this dream around buying some land
He"s gonna offer up the booze and the one-night stands
And then he"ll settle down
In some quiet little town
And forobtain about everything
But you understand he"ll always store moving
You know he"s never gonna soptimal moving
"Causage he"s rolling, he"s the rolling stone
And once you wake up, it"s a brand-new morning
The sun is shining, it"s a new morning
And you"re going, you"re going home
The lyrics—in comparison to the seductive sax and also upbeat strings and also keyboard—are rather dark. It"s not your typical rock/pop song around finding or shedding love.
I’ve never before heard "Baker Street" defined, yet my take on the song is this: It’s about 2 lonely civilization in a city. They discover comfort in booze, chemicals, and (occasionally) each various other. The partnership is most likely dyssensible, however they are struggling to change. Struggling to grow. Struggling to uncover interpretation.
"Baker Street" peaked at #3 in the UK and hosted the #2 spot in the UNITED STATE for 6 consecutive weeks. I think component of the reason the song was such a success is bereason the lyrics touched on somepoint a small deeper than a lot of rock tunes, something that resonated with audiences. And though the song is 40 years old currently, I have a hunch it resonates also even more currently than it did then.
It has been even more than a decade because Pope John Paul II observed that “
Health specialists say it’s rather common to cope via feelings of meaningless favor the people in Rafferty’s song—late nights, booze, one-night stands. (And, of course, tright here are additional means to cope or distract ourselves that are more common to contemporary man: texting, workaholism, Twitter, internet porn, day-trading, and so on.)
The allude of the song gets at what I believe is a vital truth: our stays often turn into sad patterns that are challenging to escape. This is particularly true, I think, if human being absence clear purpose and meaning in their resides.
The song made me think of somepoint I freshly check out in Rod Dreher’s new book The Benedict Option, which concentrates on Christian living in a post-Christian nation. Now, many Christians would not confess to living in a state of meaninglessness. However before, I think many kind of Christians endure from a different (but similar) difficulty in our culture: a lack of a meaningful order.
In his book, Dreher concludes that disorder is “the defining characteristic of the modern world.” It permeates many parts of our stays in the Western world, and also it affects world of belief and non-believers achoose.
As an outcome, many type of of us have discovered ourselves walking through life much choose the 2 human being in “Baker Street”—shed, aimless, dead on our feet. Why? A monk who spoke to Dreher—one Father Cassian—can have actually touched on a clue. He carried up Pope Benedict’s monitoring that “the Western civilization resides as though God does not exist.”
“I think that’s true. Fragmentation, are afraid, disorientation, drifting—those are extensively diffsupplied features of our culture,” the monk ongoing.
How many type of of us feel this way? I’d be lying if I sassist I did not determine to some level with the summary over (although, like many type of males, my feelings usually exist in a state of healthy repression).
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Dreher, I suspect, would most likely indicate this is the result of world of confidence living in a secularized world. He could be correct, yet I"m not sure.
In any event, it renders me wonder exactly how many type of civilization feel the way Father Cassian described—drifting, fragmented, anxious—however continue to gain up and execute the very same thing over and over just like the world in “Baker Street.” Convinced that in another year, then they"ll be happy.