Penultimate

The Other Side of the Cliché

One of the more durable clichés when it comes to dealing with life's slings and arrows is the familiar "light at the end of the tunnel" metaphor. Almost equally common is the tongue-in-cheek reminder that the light we are seeing may simply be an oncoming train.

In my own life at present, my concern isn't that the light is
a locomotive bearing down on me, but rather the fact that the light
is growing dimmer, no matter how fast I try to move toward it.


As it stands now, tomorrow's entry will be the last one for awhile, and possibly the last one period. I will try to explain the reasons for that in tomorrow's entry...

"So, what's the plan, then?"

Working on that...

Until Tomorrow...

Every song in my iTunes "Tearjerkers" playlist is guaranteed to have that effect on me, but even in such a collection of heart-tugging music there are a handful of songs that evoke that tearful response to a fare-thee-well. Today's featured song is one of that handful, and has spent some time at the very top of the list.

Country music artist Alan Jackson released his debut album Here In the Real World on February 27, 1990, barely a month before the birth of my son. Since my (now ex) wife liked this album a lot, it got played rather often in our home. For a period of time Jackson was probably her favorite artist, and that fondness colors my own feelings about his music even all these years later.

"Here In the Real World" was the second single release from the album, and began Jackson's string of 23 consecutive Top 5 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, including 14 that reached No. 1. At the time of its release, I thought that its theme of the contrast between fictional romance and real life's vicissitudes was a good one. It wasn't until my wife left me, though, that the full emotional impact of that metaphor took hold of me. In the weeks after she left, I probably listened to this song dozens of times, and cried buckets of tears.

The emotional situation I find myself in right now is different, but the feelings are much the same: If life were like the movies, I'd never be blue...

This is the official music video for the song, from Alan's VEVO channel...