Change (or better, Truth)

Change indeed.

Reading around, once again, this time finding I need to hold my keys. Not because I disagree with what anyone has to say, and no, not dropping names either (not all are on that list over there anyway), but because I see through the words too easily. I wonder who's managed to see through my own words and what they've found.

So, back to change. The one given constant over a course of time. The course of time? Well, that's a loaded question. Regardless of perspective, change occurs. Even to said perspective.

Something new dispelled about me: I can listen to the same sixty-odd songs, morning and night (sometimes afternoon, too) for nearly three months. Gets further restricted - there are only 9 or so different artists in the whole list. I didn't set out to run this experiment. Sure is fun watching it pan out though.

Change is guaranteed. It is the only guarantee. Without visiting the old cliches about doors and new life, change is the only thing that gives opportunity to See or Know in any light other than what is expected. Indeed, in order to (crap, cliches won't go) "broaden our horizons" we need to open our minds, change them, consider ideas that are not our own.

These songs, particular lines' meanings, can change in an instant. Or I'll manage to pick up only on one instrument (horn, say) and hear how it plays to the theme of the song, like a good book's writing is set to the pace of the story. For example, check out Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath." Masterful that way.

Change. One song on that list is Tom Waits's, "Tango Till They're Sore" (from the "Raindogs" album, without doubt). I simply enjoy the song, never wanting to qualify it with meaning. Hell, it's Tom Waits. Then one kidlet came to me, opened a dialogue:

"I know why he says that."
-Says what?
"That he'll tell you all his secrets but lie about his past."
-Oh?
"If he tells all his secrets, then he's told his past already and to hide that, he'll play off like he's lying."
-Hm. Never thought of it that way.

In the minds of those unfettered by definitive limitations, sight can be so clear. I like the line for the contrast and the way it's sung. The kidlet likes it for the hidden agenda, apparently. Because what are secrets but truths we choose not to tell "everyone?"

Change. "Tango..." sounds completely different now. Not only that, but it is a fairly recent addition (again, perspective - "recent" can mean up to a year for music around here), and therefore this is a new memory to rise when I hear it. May sound funny, but I used to read by candlelight while listening to "Raindogs" on cassette years ago. I hadn't even heard the songs in more than a decade when I picked up the disc. Listening, I remembered the books I'd read, the stories in them, the room I'd read them in. Once in a while, I'd recall the guy that'd played one of the songs at an open mic and nearly did it justice. But tonight, I recall my kid telling me about truths and the clever ways in which people try to hide them.

Like the kidlet did the other day, maybe I see through the words too easily. Truths that are either trying to be hidden or are not yet realized by those that speak them. Either way, not my job to call them out. Maybe those truths would only be mine, had I written the same words, in the same order. Still, doesn't matter.

Here, change is accepted then, without trepidation. As are truths.