Post by MisterC on Jun 9, 2014 17:09:06 GMT -6
Haven't heard the song' "The Change" in a long time. Caught it today, and I discovered that it STILL makes me cry.
Such a beautiful melody with such beautiful words.
Just as a little background on this video: Country music superstar, Garth Brooks, put thus video together after the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed over 160 people and injured nearly 700 others.
Garth is from Oklahoma, so while the tragedy on that early spring day ripped at the soul of the world, I'm sure it hit him particularly hard.
The pictures and the video you will see come from that day. It is still hard for me to watch, but what an inspiration the song is. We see in the clips what hatred and ignorance can do to the human race, but we also get to see that thing that can still rescue us from ourselves: love.
When this barbarism occurred, I was still in the closet, but it was later that same year that I came out. I can remember thinking of "The Change" and listening to it a lot that year. In a way, the song had a part in my coming out. Back in the bad old days of my closet "life", I had grown to believe that that all-too-familiar pain in the deepest part of my soul was simply the non-negotiable price I was going to pay to be a gay man in a world that could never accept something like me. I can remember thinking how dangerous hope was. Things COULD NOT change for me, so why bother to hope for better? Hope and I, as my fevered line of thinking went, could never exist in the same life. It was a foreign concept for me back then.
But, when I first listened closely to Garth's song, my ears pricked up when he sang, "As long as one heart still holds on/Then hope is never really gone" and something in me changed. I could slowly feel the fight coming back. I began to allow myself, little-by-little, to actually believe that I COULD hold on, and that I COULD hope for more than the darkness that presently constituted my hurting "life".
I came to eventually understand that no one could possibly heal my broken life but me, and that I needed to be stubborn for the first time in my life. I needed to as resolute as I could be that, to quote more of the words of Garth's song, "this world...will not change me" because--aside from more-than-my share of pain and imperfection--I wasn't really such a bad guy. I came to accept in my heart that maybe being who I really was/am wasn't in need of change at all.
I guess that what I needed was to give the REAL ME a chance to breathe, and a chance to live. I needed to take a giant leap of faith and release the grip I had on the deadly lie that "no matter what you do, it's still the same thing".
At the very least, I thought, I owed it to myself to try to make it in this world before I gave up on life for good. And I owed it myself to stop being an irredeemable victim. It was getting old and life was too short
I don't think I ever dreamed of changing the whole world, but it became increasingly clear to me that, if I was going to stay here, I had no choice but completely my little corner of it.
And, in time and with a lot of prayer, I did...and I still am.
Lyrics for
"The Change" by Garth Brooks
One hand
Reaches out
And pulls a lost soul from harm
While a thousand more go unspoken for
They say what good have you done
By saving just this one
It's like whispering a prayer
In the fury of a storm
And I hear them saying you'll never change things
And no matter what you do it's still the same thing
But it's not the world that I am changing
I do this so this world will know
That it will not change me
This heart
Still believes
That love and mercy still exist
While all the hatreds rage and so many say
That love is all but pointless in madness such as this
It's like trying to stop a fire
With the moisture from a kiss
And I hear them saying you'll never change things
And no matter what you do it's still the same thing
But it's not the world that I am changing
I do this so this world will know
That it will not change me
As long as one heart still holds on
Then hope is never really gone
I hear them saying you'll never change things
And no matter what you do it's still the same thing
But it's not the world that I am changing
I do this so this world we know
Never changes me
What I do is so
This world will know
That it will not change me
Such a beautiful melody with such beautiful words.
Just as a little background on this video: Country music superstar, Garth Brooks, put thus video together after the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed over 160 people and injured nearly 700 others.
Garth is from Oklahoma, so while the tragedy on that early spring day ripped at the soul of the world, I'm sure it hit him particularly hard.
The pictures and the video you will see come from that day. It is still hard for me to watch, but what an inspiration the song is. We see in the clips what hatred and ignorance can do to the human race, but we also get to see that thing that can still rescue us from ourselves: love.
When this barbarism occurred, I was still in the closet, but it was later that same year that I came out. I can remember thinking of "The Change" and listening to it a lot that year. In a way, the song had a part in my coming out. Back in the bad old days of my closet "life", I had grown to believe that that all-too-familiar pain in the deepest part of my soul was simply the non-negotiable price I was going to pay to be a gay man in a world that could never accept something like me. I can remember thinking how dangerous hope was. Things COULD NOT change for me, so why bother to hope for better? Hope and I, as my fevered line of thinking went, could never exist in the same life. It was a foreign concept for me back then.
But, when I first listened closely to Garth's song, my ears pricked up when he sang, "As long as one heart still holds on/Then hope is never really gone" and something in me changed. I could slowly feel the fight coming back. I began to allow myself, little-by-little, to actually believe that I COULD hold on, and that I COULD hope for more than the darkness that presently constituted my hurting "life".
I came to eventually understand that no one could possibly heal my broken life but me, and that I needed to be stubborn for the first time in my life. I needed to as resolute as I could be that, to quote more of the words of Garth's song, "this world...will not change me" because--aside from more-than-my share of pain and imperfection--I wasn't really such a bad guy. I came to accept in my heart that maybe being who I really was/am wasn't in need of change at all.
I guess that what I needed was to give the REAL ME a chance to breathe, and a chance to live. I needed to take a giant leap of faith and release the grip I had on the deadly lie that "no matter what you do, it's still the same thing".
At the very least, I thought, I owed it to myself to try to make it in this world before I gave up on life for good. And I owed it myself to stop being an irredeemable victim. It was getting old and life was too short
I don't think I ever dreamed of changing the whole world, but it became increasingly clear to me that, if I was going to stay here, I had no choice but completely my little corner of it.
And, in time and with a lot of prayer, I did...and I still am.
Lyrics for
"The Change" by Garth Brooks
One hand
Reaches out
And pulls a lost soul from harm
While a thousand more go unspoken for
They say what good have you done
By saving just this one
It's like whispering a prayer
In the fury of a storm
And I hear them saying you'll never change things
And no matter what you do it's still the same thing
But it's not the world that I am changing
I do this so this world will know
That it will not change me
This heart
Still believes
That love and mercy still exist
While all the hatreds rage and so many say
That love is all but pointless in madness such as this
It's like trying to stop a fire
With the moisture from a kiss
And I hear them saying you'll never change things
And no matter what you do it's still the same thing
But it's not the world that I am changing
I do this so this world will know
That it will not change me
As long as one heart still holds on
Then hope is never really gone
I hear them saying you'll never change things
And no matter what you do it's still the same thing
But it's not the world that I am changing
I do this so this world we know
Never changes me
What I do is so
This world will know
That it will not change me
