"It is intensely painful to see that one's future has been mostly transmuted into one's past by the mysterious process of time. Yet, time itself is so serene and tranquil it's hard not to think of it as ultimately benign, even as it slowly begins to draw the shroud around us, as it inevitably does. This song captures that perfectly."
~oamericanos69
Many of us are familiar with the Judy Collins rendering of this song. It has always moved me. Even so, when I heard Nina Simone's version in The Dancer Upstairs, it truly floored me. Perhaps it was the song's position in the film. The juxtaposition of innocence and experience in that final scene with Javier Bardem watching his daughter perform was scintillating in its simplicity, this song serving as a backdrop.
The statement at the top of the page was lifted from the Comments section on YouTube. If the video here doesn't play, you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXeh742_jak
The opening track on side two of Judy Collins' Colors of the Day* is "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?" Her delivery is heartfelt, poignant and moving. I've listened to it countless times over the years and it always soothes. The lyrics begin like this.
Across the morning sky, all the birds are leaving How can they know it's time for them to go? Before the winter fire, I will still be dreaming I do not count time Who knows where the time goes? Who knows where the time goes?
Time is experienced in many ways. There are the seasons, and there are the days -- sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset. Sometimes, when you are longing for something, time drags. Other times it seems to fly.
The birds, in tune with the seasons, depart for warmer climates each autumn. But the narrator accepts the winter, lost in a different kind of time... that is timeless.
Sad deserted shore, your fickle friends are leaving Ah, but then you know it's time for them to go But I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving I do not count the time Who knows where the time goes? Who knows where the time goes?
The second verse addresses departure in a different manner. But our narrator is unconcerned, floating in that timeless sphere beyond it all. The reason is explained in verse three. She is not alone while her lover is near. And though disruptions occur, and he flies away, she knows that he will return, like the dawn, like the birds, like the ebb and flow of the sea. She's in that state of being where she's untouched, nourished by the painful sweetness of things we don't fully understand but accept. And I am not alone while my love is near me I know it will be so until it's time to go So come the storms of winter and then the birds in spring again I have no fear of time Who knows how my love grows? Who knows where the time goes?
The song speaks of mystery, of something ethereal, indefinable. Resignation? Acceptance? Perhaps it's simply that sense of being immersed in timelessness.
Where is this timeless place? It's an interior spatial plane, a place we miss because of the blistering pace of most of our lives. We rush about from here to there, escaping from our selves.
In Psalm 23 the psalmist writes, "He leads me beside still waters." Those "still waters" are within. If we would just be still we could be comforted and nourished by them.
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Myintroduction to Javier Bardem came via the Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men. His portrayal of Anton Chiguhr, the villain he brought to life on the silver screen, was more than memorable. It also won him a well-deserved Oscar as Best Supporting Actor. And it stirred a desire in me to see more of his films. (I have since seen many.)
One of these was The Dancer Upstairs, directed by John Malkovich. It's a powerful film on so many levels. The casting is perfect, especially the lead characters played by Bardem and Laura Morante. (You can read my review here.)
In the final scene, post-climax, there's a subtle resolution that takes place. The scene is accompanied by a soundtrack featuring another version of "Who Knows Where The Time Goes?" except it's not by Judy Collins or Sandy Denny, the song's author. Rather, it is Nina Simone, and it's an absolutely wonderful rendition, beginning with a lengthy spoken introduction, both in this recording and also in the film. The purpose of this blog post was, in part, to share this song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXeh742_jak
* Colors of the Day is actually a Best of Judy Collins album, so the song originally appeared earlier, on the flip side of her version of "Both Sides Now."
“I'll tell you what Freedom is to me. No fear.” ―Nina Simone
Bertrand Russell in his book Free Thought and Official Propaganda talks about the meaning of freedom, and the ways we are not free in our purportedly "free" society. We've always known how un-free people were behind the Iron Curtain. Spielberg's Bridge of Spies illustrates this. Solzhenitsyn wrote about it extensively. In the "free" West, we don't notice all the ways the deck is stacked against true freedom.
Russell was British, so some of his illustrations may not entirely apply, though some most definitely did at the time of this speech, 1922. His concern here was with freedom of thought and freedom of the individual.
England at that time had Blasphemy Laws in which it was illegal to express disbelief in Christianity. It was out of these (now long forgotten) circumstances that his own philosophical position as an atheist took shape. This may well be a motivating factor in why many intellectuals have concerns about the rise of the Religious Right as a political force.
After mentioning the Blasphemy Laws, Russell notes a contradiction in the laws, for when the nation wants to stir up "war fever" it was also illegal to teach hat Christ taught about non-resistance. "Therefore whoever wishes to avoid becoming a criminal must profess to agree with Christ's teaching, but must avoid saying what that teaching was."
He goes on to say, "In America no one can enter the country without solemnly declaring that he disbelieves in anarchism and polygamy; and once inside he must also disbelieve in communism." In Japan it was illegal to disbelieve in the divinity of the Mikado. In short, a trip around the world will become problematic at many points if you are a Mohammedan, Christian, Tolstoyan or Bolshevik.
A double standard is applied, though, if you are rich. The rich can believe whatever they want as long as they avoid offensive obtrusiveness. (This same double standard for the rich and the rest was applied during Prohibition as well.)
What he next states is the obvious conclusion of this first plank of his reasoning. If thought is to be free, there should not be penalties for expressing one's opinions. "No great country has yet reached to this level, although most of them think they have."
Russell was not only a strong advocate for free thought and free expression, but also an opponent of indoctrination.
Several thoughts come to mind here. First, an essay by a Harvard professor during the 1930's who said that no presidential candidate can run for the highest office in the land unless he says he is a Christian and believes in God. What this means, he said, is that all ambitious politicians will profess it whether they believe it or not. And in light of that, their professions have absolutely no weight because they know it is part of the charade.
Several decades later John F. Kennedy was being put through the wringer because it was not enough to be Christian, but rather to be a Protestant Christian. If he is Catholic, would he kiss the ring of the Pope and do what the Pope wanted instead of what was best for our country?
The second thought that came to mind was the intensity of hostility in our current "cancel culture"when we express things outside what is "acceptable." Facebook wants us to feel like we're free, as long as we accept the reality that they can delete our expressions when they cross their acceptable lines. I am not referring to bullying here.
We shouldn't have to fear retribution for having a different belief than someone else on current events. And yet, I know many people who will no longer express themselves online, and some who have even changed their names.
In WWI it was illegal to express an anti-war sentiment. Something like 2000 people were put in jail for expressing publicly their opposition to the war. At that time our government spent oodles of dollars to stir up the public against Germany and Germans themselves who were already American citizens. (See: He Who Controls the Narrative Controls the People.)
In all these things much more can be said. A primary point of the First Amendment is that I may not agree with what you think or say, but I will defend your right to say it. To be continued.
“I came to expect despair every time I set foot in my own country, and I was never disappointed.” ―Nina Simone
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An example of what I am talking about can be found in paragraph 4 of this essay What Are The Humanities? by Justin E.H. Smith (The paragraph beginning with, "I have the luxury of living in France..."
On this day in history civil rights activist Medgar Evers was assassinated. Born July 2, 1925, in Decatur, Mississippi he became, in 1954, the first state field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi. As such, he organized voter-registration efforts and economic boycotts, and investigated crimes perpetrated against blacks. For these "subversive" activities he was assassinated outside his Mississippi home 55 years ago today. It took more than three decades to send his killer to prison. Such were the machinations of Mississippi justice.
Evers served in World War II from 1943 to '45 and returned, like many other African Americans of his generation, to see the Jim Crow South with new eyes. He graduated college on the G.I. Bill and soon became involved with civil rights work. In 1954 he came field secretary for the NAACP, travelling extensively throughout the state, a witness to the widespread injustices that were a way of life there. For context, 1954 was the year of the landmark legislation Brown v. Board of Education, 1955 the death of Emmett Till.
After years of organizing and standing up to the powers that be, "Evers's efforts made him a target for those who opposed racial equality and desegregation. He and his family were subjected to numerous threats and violent actions, including a firebombing of his house in May 1963, shortly before his assassination."(1)
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August 28, less than two months later, proved to be one of the most memorable days in our history as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led a march on Washington for jobs and freedom, galvanizing the civil rights movement with his epic "I Have A Dream" speech, which reverberates to this day. A young Bob Dylan was one of many singers who had been invited to perform at the event.(2) Even though he'd just released his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, with a number of suitable songs for the occasion ("Blowin' in the Wind" and "Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" come to mind) he sang three songs from his next album, including "Only A Pawn In Their Game" which he'd written in response to the shooting of Medgar Evers.
It's not possible for me to hear this song without being moved, and for decades I felt it to be the most powerful response ever written in response to Evers' assassination. Eventually, thanks to the Internet, I discovered Nina Simone's response to this and everything taking place in Mississippi at that time, a song which -- for reasons self-evident -- would not have been aired on the radio stations most of us listened to while growing up in the Sixties. It's called "Mississippi Goddam."(3)
The chorus, which also opens the song, goes like this: Alabama's gotten me so upset Tennessee made me lose my rest And everybody knows about Mississippi goddam
Lyrics like these reflect the burden of being black in the Deep South at that time:
Hound dogs on my trail School children sitting in jail Black cat cross my path I think every day's gonna be my last Lord have mercy on this land of mine We all gonna get it in due time I don't belong here I don't belong there I've even stopped believing in prayer Don't tell me I tell you Me and my people just about due I've been there so I know They keep on saying 'Go slow!'
It's a painful song, but its despairing tone reflects a strange beauty that I find incredibly moving.
Like Dylan's "Only A Pawn" it's the manner in which the song is sung that goes right through you. Let's mark the day by remembering.
