May 24 - Your Belgian Things

So, going to start by looking at the musicality here. This is an absolute joy of a mid century ballad. The way the guitar and bass and piano wrap around each other and the repeated poetic refrains. I can't imagine exactly what the musical this came from would be, but it would absolutely make me cry. What a mature, subtle, sensitive piece of music.

And now the lyrics. John exists deep in a landscape of metaphor and imagery, and this is all about absence and traces and the things we leave behind in the earnest hope of being able to come back to them. The parts of us we can't be now, the people we were then, and the chances of us being able to visit these things. DO we come out of it?

I guess, I guess, but Jesus, what a mess.