Expressing the Emotions of Life and the Importance of Living in the Moment
If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Have you ever heard a song that catches your attention on the first note and sets the tone for the melancholic yet hopeful journey that lies ahead? Everyone has that one special tone that resonates with their soul, the one that speaks directly to their heart and captures their essence.
I enjoy music, and I feel music is a powerful craft that has the ability to evoke emotions and connect feelings. I say this because I am one of those who love listening to and feeling the emotive tones of songs. I can’t say I can do this for every song, but I can certainly feel this for those songs that can speak to me.
I don’t know what triggers this connection, but I bet some songwriters do. That’s why they can produce songs that can make me gladly hand over my money. I have a list of songs that can reverberate my feelings. One such song is "Chasing Cars", released by the British rock band Snow Patrol in 2006. If you haven’t heard it before, you can listen to it via the video below.
I can’t remember how many times I have listened to it, but each time it will connect to me like I am listening to it for the first time, especially in the deep of the night when things are silent and I am doing my self-reflection. It is a melancholic and emotive song that expresses the feelings of life, longing, and vulnerability. The song's lyrics are simple yet powerful, and they resonate with me and perhaps also with many people who have experienced the highs and lows of life.
The song begins with the words “We'll do it all, everything, on our own,” which expresses a sense of independence and self-sufficiency. This is quickly followed by the admission that "We don't need anything or anyone," which suggests a deep longing for something more. The song's chorus, “If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?” expresses the desire to be close to someone, to forget about everything else, and to simply be in the moment.
I have always wondered if the title “Chasing Cars” wasn’t the original vision and if the songwriter was trying to convey the idea of chasing dreams but felt a sense of inappropriateness before switching to chasing cars as a metaphor for pursuing something that is out of reach.
As the song progresses, the song asks, “Those three words, are said too much, they're not enough,” it suggests to me that words alone are not sufficient to express the depth of “how I feel”. Which I guess is why many of us feel so connected to it. All of us are locked up in our little brains longing for another soul to understand and connect with how we feel, especially in times of hardship. And the lyrics aptly summarise this feeling.
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