Shannon’s Perspective:
“We will stand together. Yeah, we will stand as one.”
I must admit I don’t really remember this song. I remember the album it’s on, Into the Great Wide Open, and I remember that album has a lot of amazing songs on it but this song in particular not so much. Interested in hearing why Larry chose this song.
After hearing Larry’s perspective, I have some things to add. We talk a lot about how we both feel like we were destined for each other, and we sometimes touch on the reasons why and this is a perfect example of the why. Yes, Larry has a crappy memory but lucky for him I do not, or rather I did not. I may not be able to recall things more recently as well as I could, but I do remember a lot from before. So, I have all the memories for both of us from when we got together until now. But there is a bonus, because we were friends first, Larry shared a lot with me before we became a couple and I remember all that for him as well. Any memory he has shared with me over the years I have tried very hard to remember for him and now we are trying to put these memories to paper so in the future we will both have them.
We have the perfect combination of yin and yang and compliment each other very well, IMO.
This is off the Into the Great Wide Open album that was released in 1991, which I consider an "almost" perfect album. So into my life about a year before I knew Shannon existed. And that perspective is important - in my life for 33 years.
As time went on, you would hear "Learning to Fly" and "Into the Great Wide Open" but honestly, there really weren't any other singles released. So if you don't listen to the album, you're missing a lot of great songs.
I think I've possibly referenced before the fact that Shannon and I hear / experience music very differently. As a song plays, I can hear the different tracks and depending on my particular mood, follow that particular track. So key in only on the drums. Or the bass. Or the background vocals. Shannon cannot do that, and that honestly shatters me every time I think about it because there is so much more that she is missing.
As I mentioned for Afire Love, I have a terrible memory, and it's something I've had to grow accustomed to living with - but that doesn't mean I like it. And that it's not devastating at times.
On one hand, to me, it is absolutely amazing that you can go years and years, possibly even a decade, without hearing a song - and when all of a sudden you hear it, it all comes back. Every note. Every instance. Every track. Every lyric.
For someone like me, that's the very first thought - amazement. But that is a very, very fleeting thought. It immediately turns to frustration. And guilt.
Neil Peart once penned the following lyric in The Wreckers: "All I know is that memory can be too much to carry - Striking down like a bolt from the blue".
That lyric, ironically, drives towards a different devastating sentiment, but the last part holds true to me for this song - something that struck down like a bolt from the blue.
I honestly believe that it was a period of at least ten plus years that I had not heard this song. And then one day while I was mowing, it randomly played.
And in that moment, I recalled everything about it. After not hearing it for at least ten years. So there I was, happily mowing my grass on Longleaf Street in Pickerington, Ohio having a nervous breakdown.
Currently, this song is the pinnacle example for me of a song "striking down like a bolt from the blue". Why on earth can I remember something so trivial as this song and everything about it and not much, much more important things in life? To have this happen makes me feel like I've betrayed my wife, my sons and myself.
I know there is a lot of psychology around why you can remember songs versus anything else in your life (take these articles for example). But I've always felt my "condition" is worse than the average person.
https://time.com/6167197/psychology-behind-remembering-music/
https://theconversation.com/the-science-of-why-you-can-remember-song-lyrics-from-years-ago-204167
I also find it fascinating that without hearing a song and singing along, you likely cannot sing a song from memory (your ABC's and Happy Birthday don't count). Maybe this is just me - but I suspect not.
Let me put that into a perspective relative to me that may help. Let's say Rush has released ~197 songs throughout their career (I tried to eliminate drum & guitar solos). If you asked me right now to sing any of their songs from memory - I could do one. One song. And even then I'd probably screw it up.
So at the end of the day, this isn't a song that makes me think about Shannon so much as it makes me think about how my lack of memory condition has "betrayed" her...
Ghost of a Chance 