Before the Deluge

Now let the music keep our spirits high
And let the buildings keep our children dry
Let creation reveal its secrets by and by
By and by . . . 
When the light that's lost within us reaches the sky

~ Jackson Browne

Wow, ten posts in and I'm just getting around to a Jackson Browne song?  It won't be the last.  Jackson Browne is, hands down, my favorite lyricist.  I got to tell him that once when I spoke to him at Levon Helm's Barn in Woodstock NY.  Levon had recently died, and Jackson was doing a benefit concert to help keep the Barn in business.  Margaret and I sat in the front row; I was directly across from Jackson as he sat at his piano.  At one point, he stared at me as if he were looking into my soul.  (I have witnesses.)

Before the Deluge appears on the 1974 release Late for the Sky.  Can this song really be over 40 years old?  As with so many songs that have captured my attention in the last few months, this one could easily have been just written.

Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future

Well, there's the 2016 election in one of many nutshells.  We all vote with an eye toward the future, or at least toward our very own personal future.  Dreamers?  Fools?  I don't think it's one or the other, even though our polarized population might think so.

While the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
With their hearts, they turned to each other's heart for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge

Time speeds by while we work to acquire all that we think we need to live.  And of course, none of it is as important as love and security and peace.  John Lennon tried to tell us this many years ago:  All you need is love.  Well, that and a good craft beer.  We'll probably need that if the "troubled years" last very long.