Hurtin', Leavin', and Longin' (50)—12-12-84

One year ago on Round and Square (12 December 2011)—Beginnings: The Whig Interpretation of History
Click here to read the introduction to the Round and Square series "Hurtin', Leavin', and Longin'..."

[a] Loss RF

Exactly twenty-eight years ago this evening, one fictional man watched a true love go. If he could do it over, he would go back to the end and start over again...on 12-12-84. This is a calendrical twist on the old country saw: she's gone—she done left me. The difference here is that the lyrics are sincere and direct. On top of it all, David Ball is smart. He hits the interpretive nail right on the head (with nary a cliché to be seen). You see, time is a teacher...and his failures still echo in (his) head. 

My first thought today, in 2012, is...why does this all have to be "he/she." This has much more rich potential than simple gender binaries. Still, with that in mind, let's think a bit more about this song (and its East Asian counterparts).

[b] Snippet RF

You see, about a a decade ago, I read a little snippet in the New York Times. It went something like this. Men and women have varying degrees of commitment to...memory. It seems that women (according to the little survey I read) look back to the past, shrug, and move on. Men (remember that this is a survey, and a broad generalization beyond that...and an earlier era) look into the deep, dark, chasm of time...and want to do it over. They want to take a mulligan, pull out their second serve, or throw the curve ball after missing with the fastball. They want to reach back into the past and rescue themselves from their previous failures. 

Maybe it's a "guy" thing (whatever that really means).

This is the spirit of David Ball's song of pained mnemonics. Take a click, and listen carefully.

David Ball 12-12-84

          David Ball
          12-12-84
          12-12-84, ten o'clock at night
           Funny how you can remember
           Certain moments in your life
           I wish I could go back
          To take back the words I said
          Though it's been years since that night
          They still echo in my head

          Chorus
          Time is a teacher
          And time has taught me well
          What brings a man to his knees
          Is often brought on by himself
          If a second chance were offered
          And she could love me like before
          I'd go back to the end and start over again
          On 12-12-84

          A cold wind was blowing
          It whistled through the pines
           I told her I don't need her
          And she told me goodbye
          I remember embers dying
          In the ashes and the coals
          And like smoke up the chimney
          I watched a true love go
 
          Chorus
           I'd go back to the end and start over again
           On 12-12-84

[c] Go RF

Time is a teacher, oh, and time has taught him well. David Ball—who I think is one of the best writers and voices in Nashville history (a minority opinion, I realize)—remembers embers dying in the ashes and the cold, like smoke up a chimney, he watched a true love go.

Damn. This is so good that I want to cry.

He'd go back to the end and start over again...on 12-12-84. 

How are we going to top that? 

Or, better put, how are we going to balance the painful do-over fantasies of male rejection with an East Asian lyric of parallel strength? Well, it is not that difficult to find pain in the writing of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean lyricists. It is, however, a bit harder to see the kind of "I screwed up" finality in those lyrics. Or is it? Maybe we just need to turn the lens just a little bit and to view other forms of rejection known to almost every person who wrote poetry (and served in office) in Chinese (or Japanese or Korean) history. This poem comes from China, and is as brief as it is powerful. Let's read the four lines of Huang Tingjian's "Living in Exile at Jiannan."

          Huang Tingjian (1045-1105)
          Living in Exile at Jiannan

          Frost falls only to melt in the valley;
          Wind strews the leaves over the hills.
          By and by the bright year will dim
          And all the wood mites hibernate.
                                         —Translated by Michael E. Workman

Notes

[1]  Wu-chi Liu and Irving Yucheng Lo, Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1974), 357.

Bibliography

Liu Wu-chi and Irving Yucheng Lo. Sunflower Splendor: Three Thousand Years of Chinese Poetry. 
     Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1974.

[d] Splendor RF