ELEGANZA

ELEGANZA

DEPARTMENTS

PENNIES FROM HEAVEN by man Lababedi

It s very clear our love is here to stay, not for a year but forever and a day. The radio, and the telephone, and the movies that we know, may just be passing fancies, and in time may go. But, oh my dear, our love is here to stay. Together we’re going a long, long way. The Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble, they’re only made of clay. But our love is here to stay. ”

Ira Gershwin wrote those lyrics soon after the death of his brother, composer George Gershwin; so whatever we bring to the song, we also bring an added poignancy. I believe in those words, totally and irreparably: if love cannot stand up to it, it isn’t love as I care to define it.

Indeed, I believe in pop music lyrics more than I believe in the reality that surrounds me. Of course, Ira was one of the greatest love poets in pop music history— right up there with Smokey Robinson. But I’d believe him if he had been half as good. I believe, and hate, Whitney Houston’s solipsistic “Greatest Love Of All” with the same fervor I believe and love Bob Dylan’s “Absolutely Sweet Marie.” The tritest cliches become truth in pop music.

Hence the problem: if pop music, unlike other pure entertainment fields, is based, and always has been, on an implied trust between the artist and his audience, what do we do when the trust is betrayed? Because it isn’t a question of degree— it’s all or nothing.

There are some lyrics I have more faith in than any religion. Buddy Holly: “Well alright, we’ll live and love with all our might. . .a life-time love may be alright.” The implied question is as true and real today as when it was written, hanging in the air with the starkness of hope. When we love a lyric like that, pop music stops being a place for escape and becomes a home to live in.

At the heart of why people become disillusioned with pop is the sudden meaninglessness of too much pop: we’re like discarded lovers when those things we hold dear are desecrated. And it’s worse now than it was 40 years ago, when Tin Pan Alley hacks pelted out pro forma emotions that we could at least ignore. But how could one later ignore the empathic pain and joy of a Hank Williams? Williams went beyond the definition of great art, the responsibility of explaining one’s society; he explained how society felt. And once you felt his words, you had to believe him. It was the truth.

We, as individuals, find it difficult for anyone to understand us. The pop lyricist, by digging into our deepest emotions, joins us. We’re*alone, then we’re together, then we’re alone again. And the price for those moments of togetherness can be enormous. In the movie Pennies From Heaven, Steve Martin portrays a depression-era salesman who believes in the lyrics to pop songs: “Just around the corner, there’s a bluebird in the sky, so let’s have another cup of coffee, and let’s have another piece of pie.” By the end of the movie he’s committed murder, been framed for another murder and put to death.

A bit extreme perhaps, but if some people (like me) believe in the pop song to distraction, we must either stop believing or search for a music where the power of pop lyrics meets the condition of life. And stay there.