"Light Years" // The National -- the last goodbye
hello friends :) ... so this will be the last post before my great European adventure. Honestly, as I sit here writing this all out, I can hardly believe that all of this is actually happening to me. It feels like a dream. First of all, I HATE planes because they make me feel extremely claustrophobic... so hopefully the 8 hour flight goes well... but regardless of that, I couldn't be more excited and grateful for this opportunity of a lifetime. For those of you who don't know, I will be flying into Paris and after I'm there for a few days, the rest of my trip consists of various train stops throughout Europe! First, we go London, then to Amsterdam, Munich, Venice, Florence, and then finally, Barcelona! I will be traveling with my lifelong best friend, Madison (not putting her last name here for confidentiality reasons, obviously). But anyways... now to the music part!
I actually had a difficult time deciding what song to talk about for this post because I didn't want something too slow (since my last couple of posts have been about slow songs), but I also wanted a REALLY good song to leave off my blog with bang before my trip! So I want to talk about a very new song to me ... but it really opened my eyes. "Light Years" by The National is truly heartbreaking but also heartwarming, because it tells you that life does move on (even if you don't want everything to move on without you). If I have learned ANYTHING in these past couple of months, it is that time does heal all wounds - whether we want it to our not, that's not really a battle worth putting yourself into. I tried to do that for such a long time (fighting those impossible battles), but by the time I realized how exhausted and sad I was, I realized that the battle wasn't really worth fighting. Besides, I think you learn more about yourself when you really put yourself into new situations (the ones that you were always scared of doing by yourself - but you had to do them anyway).
So "Light Years" has a piano background (which I love) and I actually took up piano lessons when I was in 2nd grade - so I already have a strong connection to the piano. Occasionally, I play and sing along to songs now, but unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time to really sit and enjoy playing the piano. Also, I actually don't listen to The National that much, but when I do, I really really get into them for a couple of weeks. My favorite couple of lines in "Light Years" are as follows (pretty much all the lines in the chorus):
"Oh, the glory of it all was lost on me
'Til I saw how hard it'd be to reach you
And I would always be light years, light years away from you
Light years, light years away from you"
Okay so in my opinion, I think these lyrics are talking about how the person is moving on from their relationship with their significant other or dear friend. I think people are put into our lives for a reason, but they are also taken out for a reason too, because it would be exhausting putting 100% of yourself into every single person you ever met in life. Take your high school versus college friends, for example. Really, you aren't being a very good friend if you spread yourself too thin amongst all your friends -- this doesn't mean that you love them any less; you are just moving on to new things. Anyways, "the glory of it all was lost on me" really stands out to me. When I listen to this, I think of how as individuals, we have all the glory that we could ever need in life on our own, but we aren't truly complete without the loved ones in our lives. It doesn't matter how rich we get, what car we own, whether we wear all brand-name clothes or not -- we are nothing without the loving touch of family and friends.
However, as the song continues on, there is distance that makes this hard. Change and the bustle of life gets in the way, so we have to deal with the challenges of being without the ones we love most. And this sometimes really really sucks. But we manage, because as I mentioned earlier, time really does heal all wounds. I really love this song because being "light years, light years away" from someone/people doesn't necessarily mean that this is bad thing! I mean, I'm going to be half way across the world tomorrow night, away from all my family, but that isn't bad. You need to experience new things and be thrown outside of your comfort zone every once in awhile because otherwise, you will never leave your safety bubble. You will always see the world through rose-colored glasses, and while it may be pretty, that is not reality. Reality isn't all awful, but the truth is necessary. You need to light years away from people sometimes in life to figure your own self out and find who you are supposed to be. This may hurt, but it is necessary.
Anyways, please give this song (and other songs by The National) a good listen, because I promise you won't be disappointed! Lastly, I just wanted to make one other comment -- again, this blog is a safe space for my thoughts and rants about my feelings and my music, so please refrain from judging... if you don't want to read it, then don't lol. I don't really care if 2 people read this or 50 (or 0 lol). I think that everyone should be able to feel comfortable sharing their feelings about their music and their feelings in general with anyone who wants to be a friendly listener (but not a mean hater!). So yeet - happy reading and listening!!!
As for myself, I will be leaving the country tomorrow night for quite some time so I don't know how much blogging I will be doing -- I honestly just kind of want to go off the grid for awhile so we shall see... but I promise to post many updates when I return (hopefully as a new, enlightened person!).
Till then, sleep good and hold tight,
Sarah :)
Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash Photo by Kevin Delvecchio on Unsplash Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash
I actually had a difficult time deciding what song to talk about for this post because I didn't want something too slow (since my last couple of posts have been about slow songs), but I also wanted a REALLY good song to leave off my blog with bang before my trip! So I want to talk about a very new song to me ... but it really opened my eyes. "Light Years" by The National is truly heartbreaking but also heartwarming, because it tells you that life does move on (even if you don't want everything to move on without you). If I have learned ANYTHING in these past couple of months, it is that time does heal all wounds - whether we want it to our not, that's not really a battle worth putting yourself into. I tried to do that for such a long time (fighting those impossible battles), but by the time I realized how exhausted and sad I was, I realized that the battle wasn't really worth fighting. Besides, I think you learn more about yourself when you really put yourself into new situations (the ones that you were always scared of doing by yourself - but you had to do them anyway).
So "Light Years" has a piano background (which I love) and I actually took up piano lessons when I was in 2nd grade - so I already have a strong connection to the piano. Occasionally, I play and sing along to songs now, but unfortunately, I don't have a lot of time to really sit and enjoy playing the piano. Also, I actually don't listen to The National that much, but when I do, I really really get into them for a couple of weeks. My favorite couple of lines in "Light Years" are as follows (pretty much all the lines in the chorus):
"Oh, the glory of it all was lost on me
'Til I saw how hard it'd be to reach you
And I would always be light years, light years away from you
Light years, light years away from you"
Okay so in my opinion, I think these lyrics are talking about how the person is moving on from their relationship with their significant other or dear friend. I think people are put into our lives for a reason, but they are also taken out for a reason too, because it would be exhausting putting 100% of yourself into every single person you ever met in life. Take your high school versus college friends, for example. Really, you aren't being a very good friend if you spread yourself too thin amongst all your friends -- this doesn't mean that you love them any less; you are just moving on to new things. Anyways, "the glory of it all was lost on me" really stands out to me. When I listen to this, I think of how as individuals, we have all the glory that we could ever need in life on our own, but we aren't truly complete without the loved ones in our lives. It doesn't matter how rich we get, what car we own, whether we wear all brand-name clothes or not -- we are nothing without the loving touch of family and friends.
However, as the song continues on, there is distance that makes this hard. Change and the bustle of life gets in the way, so we have to deal with the challenges of being without the ones we love most. And this sometimes really really sucks. But we manage, because as I mentioned earlier, time really does heal all wounds. I really love this song because being "light years, light years away" from someone/people doesn't necessarily mean that this is bad thing! I mean, I'm going to be half way across the world tomorrow night, away from all my family, but that isn't bad. You need to experience new things and be thrown outside of your comfort zone every once in awhile because otherwise, you will never leave your safety bubble. You will always see the world through rose-colored glasses, and while it may be pretty, that is not reality. Reality isn't all awful, but the truth is necessary. You need to light years away from people sometimes in life to figure your own self out and find who you are supposed to be. This may hurt, but it is necessary.
Anyways, please give this song (and other songs by The National) a good listen, because I promise you won't be disappointed! Lastly, I just wanted to make one other comment -- again, this blog is a safe space for my thoughts and rants about my feelings and my music, so please refrain from judging... if you don't want to read it, then don't lol. I don't really care if 2 people read this or 50 (or 0 lol). I think that everyone should be able to feel comfortable sharing their feelings about their music and their feelings in general with anyone who wants to be a friendly listener (but not a mean hater!). So yeet - happy reading and listening!!!
As for myself, I will be leaving the country tomorrow night for quite some time so I don't know how much blogging I will be doing -- I honestly just kind of want to go off the grid for awhile so we shall see... but I promise to post many updates when I return (hopefully as a new, enlightened person!).
Till then, sleep good and hold tight,
Sarah :)
Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash Photo by Kevin Delvecchio on Unsplash Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash
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