Jesus Jones, "Right Here, Right Now"
A woman on the radio
talks about revolution
when it's already passed her by.
Bob Dylan didn't have this to sing about.
You know, it feels good
to be alive.
Sometime in the latter half of the 1980s, my paternal grandmother bought my siblings and I our first Walkmans (which, regrettably, is probably the plural). They were our Chanukah presents.
The Walkmans had AM-FM tuners. They were metallic in color. The tuner dials were in the upper right quadrants of the devices.
It was on my Walkman that I learned about a coup in the U.S.S.R. that overthrew Mikhail Gorbechev. I didn't understand what that meant – the end of the Soviet Union. The end of the Cold War.
I knew it meant something, though. Even then, I understood energy.
I was in the basement of my maternal grandparents' house, across the street from the house my paternal grandmother owned.
I understood better a few years later when on cable television we got to see the Berlin Wall come down.
What I understood then: People matter. People make change.
Well, I saw the decade in,
when it seemed the world could change
in the blink of an eye.
And if anything,
then there's your sign
of the times.
The thing that's stuck me most over the past 20 years – from the fall of the Soviet Union through the murder of Benazir Bhutto – is how quickly everything changes.
One morning, we're sitting at our desks, and planes crash into the skyscrapers we're working in.
Another night, we're sitting down to dinner with out families, and someone launches a "shock and awe" bombing campaign against us.
Some afternoon, we sit down to lunch, and nothing happens.
You never can tell.
Right here, right now,
there is no other place
I want to be.
Right here, right now,
watching the world wake up
from history.
There are all sorts of warnings about history. History repeats itself. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The real warning should be this. Those who don't learn how to interpret the connections and evolution of historic events are doomed themselves to become history.
One morning, we put the bread in the toaster, and by the time we're done washing our faces, the toast appears on our plates, exactly the color, texture and temperature we like it, buttered and jammed to perfection.
One afternoon, we sit down to lunch, a server points a pen-like device at our eyes, and our bank accounts are debited for the amount of lunch plus a 17.5% gratuity.
One night, we climb in bed, and tomorrow passes us by.
talks about revolution
when it's already passed her by.
Bob Dylan didn't have this to sing about.
You know, it feels good
to be alive.
Sometime in the latter half of the 1980s, my paternal grandmother bought my siblings and I our first Walkmans (which, regrettably, is probably the plural). They were our Chanukah presents.
The Walkmans had AM-FM tuners. They were metallic in color. The tuner dials were in the upper right quadrants of the devices.
It was on my Walkman that I learned about a coup in the U.S.S.R. that overthrew Mikhail Gorbechev. I didn't understand what that meant – the end of the Soviet Union. The end of the Cold War.
I knew it meant something, though. Even then, I understood energy.
I was in the basement of my maternal grandparents' house, across the street from the house my paternal grandmother owned.
I understood better a few years later when on cable television we got to see the Berlin Wall come down.
What I understood then: People matter. People make change.
Well, I saw the decade in,
when it seemed the world could change
in the blink of an eye.
And if anything,
then there's your sign
of the times.
The thing that's stuck me most over the past 20 years – from the fall of the Soviet Union through the murder of Benazir Bhutto – is how quickly everything changes.
One morning, we're sitting at our desks, and planes crash into the skyscrapers we're working in.
Another night, we're sitting down to dinner with out families, and someone launches a "shock and awe" bombing campaign against us.
Some afternoon, we sit down to lunch, and nothing happens.
You never can tell.
Right here, right now,
there is no other place
I want to be.
Right here, right now,
watching the world wake up
from history.
There are all sorts of warnings about history. History repeats itself. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
The real warning should be this. Those who don't learn how to interpret the connections and evolution of historic events are doomed themselves to become history.
One morning, we put the bread in the toaster, and by the time we're done washing our faces, the toast appears on our plates, exactly the color, texture and temperature we like it, buttered and jammed to perfection.
One afternoon, we sit down to lunch, a server points a pen-like device at our eyes, and our bank accounts are debited for the amount of lunch plus a 17.5% gratuity.
One night, we climb in bed, and tomorrow passes us by.
Labels: future, jesus jones, music, politics, present, right here right now, technology, war
posted by Josh at
06:35
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2 Comments:
This one was nicely written, and I agree with it. I often say that people never seem to learn anything from what's happened in the past, and luckily, I count myself as one of those people who actually keeps up with what's gone on before me.
And I remember that song; their last big hurrah.
Great memories of that song. I agree with your post, but I also think of the special circumstances that time represented, especially poignant in the line "watching the world wake up from history."
For so long, people's lives and politicians mind-sets had been frozen in the Cold War. The final dissolution of the Soviet empire did indeed allow people to wake up after 45 years of stasis. The fall of the Berlin wall, the break-up of Yugoslavia, the creation of the EU, even seemingly tangential events such as the end of apartheid, Afghanistan, Iran, the end of despotic military rule in S. America and the rise of fundamentalist Islamic terror groups have come as a result of the end of seeing all world events through the prism of the cold war.
Events have turned out radically different all over the globe--for good, for bad and some just plain confusing. But that song reminds me of it all. My favorite one hit wonder.
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