Daringly I stepped through a wall yesterday. Courageously my fingers reached to feel the texture of a once reckless world set aside. Boldly moving forward like the new and improved now in theaters Captain Kirk and Spock…I braved the odds like Lewis and Clark scraping new western trails for President Thomas Jefferson. I sat down and watched late night news.
Two blinks deep into the first story and suddenly you picked up the true message shared…the eyes of the newscaster sang along with John Mayer, “Waiting for the world to change.”
Without hesitation and no reservation the incredibly tender sides of the tentacles connected to my imagination latched instantly onto the REM video Everybody Hurts, where hundreds if not thousands of wandering minds step away from their vehicles and slowly walk away from the everyday grind.
This morning, I sit listening to the song over and over again trying to pick up on the purpose of it being redelivered. Michael Stipes sings of the day being longer than night, and the night is yours alone. When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on. Don't let yourself go, everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes.
Sometimes everything is wrong. Now it's time to sing along.
When your day is night alone, (hold on, hold on)
If you feel like letting go, (hold on)
When you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on.
Everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends.
Everybody hurts. Don't throw your hand. Oh, no. Don't throw your hand.
If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone
If you're on your own in this life, the days and nights are long,
When you think you've had too much of this life to hang on.
Well, everybody hurts sometimes,
Everybody cries. And everybody hurts sometimes.
And everybody hurts sometimes. So, hold on, hold on.
Hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on. (Repeat & fade)
(Everybody hurts. You are not alone.)
I send these lyrics to the school teacher who doesn’t sit worried free, summer might have arrived on time but your future has become a pawn in a government’s way of communicating change. I send these lyrics to bank tellers and financial advisors who put passion into everything they were told and today you spend your twenty four hours working part time in places you once escaped to but today it is your reality.
I send these lyrics to mothers and fathers whose daily challenges are fed by a sudden lack of respect for a future that doesn’t seem fitting for the tiny feet they invited into the world but somehow you’ve got to make that plastic face and smile seem comfortable while doing everything within your ability to offer the slightest guarantee that those tiny heartbeats have more reason to believe in the unwritten chapters of the books they’ll write in the years after your tomorrow.
I send these lyrics to every boss assumed in control, be it a GM, CEO or department head put into play through total default…your heart isn’t as brittle and cold as the words that describe your new found place in American history claim. Your lungs seem clogged, heart stops three times a day and your eyes swell just like mine while sending you this song.
I send these lyrics to the ministers of the world whose faith is the only sliver of earth billions are willing to hold. Rather than fall witness to an empty place in the hall, your heart reaches for Mrs. Johnson whose husbands sight shapes other ways to gain false idols. Through soft spoken lyrics the tiny tears she vows to hide become four hundred more pounds on your already weighted shoulders.
I send these lyrics to the dreamers and visionaries who assumed the voices they heard put them on a path of discovery only to learn the eyes staring back in the mirror aged unlike a fine wine leaving no time to return not even through a favorite song. To the healthy today and unstoppable changes of tomorrow, the patient who sits with the medical expert shrugging his grown up shoulders then saying, “Thank god for you $20 co-pay.”
I send these lyrics to your eyes to communicate a message to your fingers connected to your heart and mind with hopes that your lungs are listening so that you can feel the intake of one maybe two lungs of air which is then sent back to your heart, arms, fingers and eyes. The circle of life.
When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
When you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on.
Don't let yourself go, everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes.
I have no idea why I chose to write this today…except to say…somebody needs it and it’s not for me to decide. But someone will step away from their computer in the next few seconds realizing they’re not alone therefore changing the path of their current history.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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