Darkness, Darkness

Darkness, Darkness, be my pillow
Take my head and let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your deep

Darkness, Darkness, hide my yearning
For the things that cannot be
Keep my mind from constant turning
Towards the things I cannot see now

~  Jesse Colin Young

If you are unfamiliar with this song and want to look for it online, you can search for the most well-known version by The Youngbloods, recorded in 1969.  But you can also pick from recordings by Mott the Hoople (1971), Bruce Springsteen (1972), Ian Matthews (1976), Eric Burden (1980), Richie Havens (1994), Richard Shindell (1997), Robert Plant (2002) or Cowboy Junkies (2004).  And there are more.  I guess that makes it a popular song, wouldn't you say?

Often described as an "anthem for doomed youth," the song was written by Young after  a sleepless night which he spent thinking about his friends who were in Viet Nam.  So much music from that era was a reaction to the war that many of us felt was wrong.  I remember well the division in our country over that war.  I did not foresee that we would experience a division more profound than that in the future, but here we are.

When we consider darkness and light as opposites, we intuitively feel light as good and darkness as bad.  But remember Hippolytus from a previous post?  The road up and the road down are the same thing.  Look at the lyrics again.  In the first verse, we are awash in comforting words:  pillow, sleep, coolness, shadow, silence, deep.  Darkness is the pacifier that calms us, the escape from our troubles and fears.  The verse is a prayer.  It asks only for comfort.

The agitation that is presented in the second verse interrupts that comfort.  The remorse over the way of the world, the unrest in the mind, the uncertainty of the future . . . even darkness cannot obliterate the discontent that is the human condition.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this.  It has been very hard . . . no, it has been impossible . . . to not let this blog become a political microphone.  In my contemplation over what song to choose for this day, January 20, 2017, I considered lyrics that were satirical, lyrics that were peaceful, lyrics that were funny, lyrics that had absolutely nothing to do with the event of the day.  I kept coming back to darkness, not even entirely understanding why.  And then I came upon the news that the new administration is considering elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as privatization of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  PEN America, an association of literary writers and editors, denounced the alleged proposed cuts as a sign of a "new Dark Ages" in America.  "The announcement that this is even under consideration casts a sinister cloud over our vibrant national culture."

Darkness.

Darkness, Darkness, long and lonesome
Ease the day that brings me pain.