Life Lessons In A Song

Songs have always had the potential to provide advice and inspiration. Songs often champion a cause, portray someone’s life, serve as an anthem, paint a picture, conjure up a memory or lead to love.

My favorite song these days gives advice. The singer sees a news story about a man who just turned 102; the man is asked what he thinks is the secret to life. This is part of his answer:

Don't blink
Just like that you're six years old and you take a nap and you
Wake up and you're twenty-five and your high school sweetheart becomes your wife
Don't blink
You just might miss your babies growing like mine did
Turning into moms and dads next thing you know your "better half"
Of fifty years is there in bed
And you're praying God takes you instead
Trust me friend a hundred years goes faster than you think
So don't blink.

These lyrics are part of a fairly new song by Kenny Chesney, and as with many country music songs, the message is basic and direct. In this case: life goes by fast, don’t blink or you’ll miss it. There is nothing particularly original about the concept, but these lyrics give it a nice twist and Chesney’s voice has exactly the right amount of emotion to bring the message to life.

There are two other songs that I believe offer life lessons in a fairly simple, but powerful way (in spite of questionable grammar). In Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying,” the singer looks into what someone might do if he found out he had a life-threatening disease and would die soon. Part of the answer in the song:

He said I was finally the husband
that most the time I wasn't
and I became a friend
a friend would like to have.
And all of the sudden going fishing
wasn't such an imposition
and I went three times that year I lost my dad

I went skydivin', I went rocky mountain climbing,
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Foo Man Chu;
and I love deeper and spoke sweeter
and I watch an eagle as it was flying,
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.

Another “life” song is “The Dance,” from the first Garth Brooks album.

And now I'm glad I didn't know
The way it all would end the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance I could have missed the pain
But I'd of had to miss the dance.

Boomers often wake up to the realization that more of our life is behind us than ahead of us. Songs like this serve a great purpose in that they remind us that life is short. There can be much pain in life, but don’t avoid it; the experience makes us stronger.

Don’t miss out on life, live life. It goes by faster than you think, so don’t blink.