Old Song, But Still Sign of the Times
"When it's time to function as a feeling human being,
will your Bachelor of Arts help you get by?
I hope to study further, a few more years or so.
I also hope to keep a steady high.
Will you try to change things, use the power that you have,
The power of a million new ideas?
What is this power you speak of
and the need for things to change?
I always thought that ev'rything was fine, ev'rything is fine.
Don't you feel repression just closing in around?
No, the campus here is very very free.
Does it make you angry the way war is dragging on?
Well I hope the President knows what he's into,
I don't know. Oooh I just don't know.
Don't you see starvation in the city where you live,
all the needless hunger, all the needless pain?
I haven't been there lately, the country is so fine,
but my neighbors don't seem hungry 'cause they haven't got the time. Haven't got the time.
(From: Chicago's "Dialogue")
will your Bachelor of Arts help you get by?
I hope to study further, a few more years or so.
I also hope to keep a steady high.
Will you try to change things, use the power that you have,
The power of a million new ideas?
What is this power you speak of
and the need for things to change?
I always thought that ev'rything was fine, ev'rything is fine.
Don't you feel repression just closing in around?
No, the campus here is very very free.
Does it make you angry the way war is dragging on?
Well I hope the President knows what he's into,
I don't know. Oooh I just don't know.
Don't you see starvation in the city where you live,
all the needless hunger, all the needless pain?
I haven't been there lately, the country is so fine,
but my neighbors don't seem hungry 'cause they haven't got the time. Haven't got the time.
(From: Chicago's "Dialogue")
posted by fromclay at 5/26/2005 11:31:00 AM
5 Comments:
I think this an important reminder about a way of being [if I can even call it that] most of us are susceptible to...but how do we, who are not lulled to sleep by the old song awaken others whose "bodies" betray them into falling asleep? To be plain: how do the conscious make the somnambulent wakeful?
I acknowledge there is not likely a short answer to this question but I hope you and others will discuss it further.
Serious lyrics. Just one question, what era is this from? Is this one of those songs you find on the oldies' station?
How about a little something from my era...
God
Life is a mystery,
everyone must stand alone
I hear you call my name
And it feels like home
Madonna, Just Like a Prayer
; ) ns
NS, I never thought St. Madonna would ever make this blog. My life is now complete (note the sarcasm.) And as for Muhammad's comment, I get a sense of what you're saying, but not sure. Can you expound? It must be that someone from my era needs baby-block explanations.
Thanks for asking me to clarify =)
What I'm trying to get at is: how do you wake up a sleeping person who is dreaming if he is convinced that what he is dreaming is reality?
Remember that saying by Imam `Ali, God be pleased with him: "People are asleep and when they die they wake up" and our Prophet, peace be upon him, saying: "Die before you die"?
When I read this post, I felt like the one responding to the questions was like a person [psychologically? or spiritually] "asleep"--it seemed to me that the questioning wasn't helping him to wake up--and so I wondered--is it even posible to wake someone up like that by means of questions/dialogue/speech?
If not--what purpose do speeches by preacher or scholars serve in "waking us up" if we're not already "wakeful" or at least susceptible to wakefulness? I think what really concerns me ultimately is: What are the means by which wakefulness is brought about?
Nice post, Mohammad, and nice points. The last lines of that song I kept out, but it affirms what you're saying, a sort of despair about people changing. The lines go like this:
"Thank you for the talk,
you know you really eased my mind. I was troubled by the shapes of things to come."
"Well, if you had my
outlook your feelings would be numb, you'd always think that everything was fine."
It's a sorry state of affairs.
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