The Happy Ending

The sixtyone is my writing tool. I always turn it on and let it cycle through songs without words, because these are the kinds of songs that help me when I'm trying to write. They can be typical classical style songs, or fast-paced and hard hitting, or new age trancey. What they can't have is lyrics, because that distracts me from the words that I want to write. What I listen to gives me a mood or a feeling, and when I feel that mood I can see what's happening in my world.

But something surprising happened to me as I listened. My song list connects to other songs of similar quality, and so I ended up, inextricably, with a cover of Mad World. I have always really loved this song, because it is beautiful and haunting, but I have never loved its irredeemably sad lyrics. It is not in me to be melancholy, or to wallow in the feeling that nothing I do in life will ever matter. My nature is firmly set to the opposite, so you can see where my contradictory feelings for this song come in. I don't believe in liking a song despite its lyrics, yet I do. It's a beautiful song, but do I really believe the world is unable to change for the better? Do I think it's best to just give up, give in, and surrender to the thought that a world without me in it is a better one? Absolutely not. So I have always limited my listening of this song.

But then- the surprise factor. Whoever had covered this song had changed it considerably. I heard the song played out, thought the same thoughts I always do, and heard its final note with something akin to relief. Then! The magic. The song continued.

I looked up from my work.

The song continued, but not in the same predictable way. Whomever had covered this song had added something considerable to it- a happy ending. As the sounds fluttered up I felt the hope in the quickness of tempo, the great sweep of the orchestra. It was hope, hope infused into a song completely and shamefully devoid of it. I experienced the thing Mr. Hardebeck told me in the 9th grade that all artists were trying to achieve: the moment of complete and total communication. Taking an idea or feeling and transferring it directly to another person without being with them. Telepathy of the heart.

Whoever had covered this song, loved this song the way I do. But they also love this world, love the feeling of happiness they feel in their everyday life, and could not content themselves to love something so devoid of hope. So they added it in, their own little postscript. I laughed. Because that's exactly what I want to do too.

Hope, my own little postscript.