Searching for the rainbow

I have a lot of music on my iTunes.  Maybe not a lot by most people's standards, but I think so: 1953 items (and that after I purged about 100 songs this morning, to make room for the latest episode of America's Next Top Model), not including television shows; four days, nineteen hours, fifty-six minutes and 19 seconds worth of music.  A scary amount of that is locked up in Broadway show tunes and movie soundtracks (33 complete soundtracks, from one to four songs from 58 other shows/movies).  That still leaves a lot of room for my other music, which runs from hard rock/heavy metal (Led Zeppelin and Metallica), through country (any one of a number of artists) through rock, and alternative, classical, standards, jazz and even Newfoundland folk rock (Great Big Sea).

Like most people I know, there are a few songs I have multiple versions of; Christmas music, mostly: I've heard  a lot of different interpretations of "Silent Night." There are a couple of non-holiday songs I have multiples of -- I have four versions of "Route 66" (not one of which is by Nat King Cole), and I have eight versions of "Over the Rainbow."

"Over the Rainbow" may be the quintessential song of childhood.  Recognition that life is not always lollipops and Santa Claus, that dreams don't come true -- except in that mythical land which all of us assumed existed when we were very young.  In the original, it was sung by a child, or a teenager at least: Judy Garland was sixteen when she starred in the Wizard of Oz, even though her character, Dorothy Gale, was supposed to be only twelve.  Her rendition is given special poignancy if you know anything about the life of child stars at that period -- in many ways they were anything but children.

For the most part, the versions of the song that I have, other than the original, seem mostly aimed at adults.  (The only exception may be Isreal Kamakawiwo'ole's cheerful yet wistful take on the song. The ukelele is a large part of its charm.) Harry Nilsson's soaring version was even used in the soundtrack of a romantic comedy which was very much not about children.*

My  youngest son, while listening me play each version in order while writing this, made the astute observation that all of the versions after the original were slower and sadder. (Again, the exceptions would be Isreal Kamakawiwo'ole's and Eric Clapton's.  Quite frankly, I bought the Clapton version mainly because the words "Eric Clapton" and "Over the Rainbow" wouldn't fit  in my brain at the same time.)  "The original was not sad, because you could get there someday," he said. "These say 'life sucks' and although I would like it to be different it won't be." He hit the nail on the head.

While I admit this may be as much an artifact of the covers of the song I ended up buying as anything else, as all one's music is a reflection one's psyche, something is happening here. In the hands of these more sophisticated singers,  the song moves from a wistful ballad of possibilities to a sad reflection upon lost childhood.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, other than to note how adults often reimage childhood things -- songs, toys, holidays (I could do a whole post on the co-opting of Halloween) -- to suit their emotional needs.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as we recognize what we are doing.

Revisiting childhood as a foreign country is okay, as long as we remember it is a foreign country, and we can't stay there forever, and that there should be limits on how much baggage we carry away.


*You've Got Mail. I've said before how this movie is one my favorite romantic comedies.  Although it's not the only reason, its use of this and other pieces by Nilsson is part of its charm.