As the new year approaches, it’s a time to pause and reflect on the past while simultaneously looking forward with some kind of hope and optimism. We all hope that in the next year we’ll get to all the things we’ve not managed to do in the past year, yet we also try to appreciate the good things that have befallen us and the difficulties we’ve gotten through. There’s a weird mix of looking back and looking ahead. Prime time for the complex mixture of joy and sorrow that this blog explores.
So, for my year-end, year-beginning musical offering, I give you The Lumineers’ “Stubborn Love.”
The Lumineers have been playing together eight or so years, but have just had their first (rather large) commercial successes in the past year with the release of their first album and two Grammys. They have a lot to look forward to, but, as they expressed in this Rolling Stone interview, they’re aware of the dangers in that. To me, they are young and “new,” but they also have a bit of maturity and nostalgia in their tone. And there’s nothing like a touch of the strings to bring a bit of melancholy to the fore.
I picked “Stubborn Love” for a couple of reasons. The song notes that “It’s better to feel pain than nothing at all,” certainly one of my themes, but also speaks to the need to “Keep your head up, keep your love.” This last is a mantra I can embrace.
And I don’t just mean romantically. We give way too little credence and attention to other kinds of love—family and friendship. I’ve been feeling very nostalgic lately about all the friends I seldom see, and in fact may never see again. Facebook is fun in that it keeps us all marginally connected, but sometimes I have to ponder that if there’s someone I haven’t seen in twenty or thirty years, will I ever again?
Here’s hoping we all get to see those people again sometime. And that 2013 is a very good year.
And here’s a terrific 30-minute live session with The Lumineers that also ends in “Stubborn Love” but contains a wider selection. If you have the time, of course, spend a little of it listening to this and remembering all the loves that stubbornly persist.
P.S. The Lumineers have their own website, but there seems to be some problem with it today. Check it out another time. Or connect via The Lumineers amazon page.
