One of my favorite songs this time of year is “Same Old Lang Syne” by Dan Fogelberg. It’s a song about Fogelberg meeting up with a lover from his past with an attempt to get re-acquainted. It’s a beautiful melody  sung with such appetite, you can almost feel the longing along with the clumsiness and pain in his words as the perilous re-relationship tries to re-ignite.

 

The song is about two people and their encounter but I see it in a more abstract kind of way, how it parallels the past and the future 12 months as if describing 2013-14.

 

Fogelberg begins the song by saying he ran into his old lover in a grocery store on Christmas Eve. Isn’t that like saying we’re standing in the present just a week away from a promising future and yet we can’t let go of the past (old lover)?

 

Fogelberg could have just strolled past her without acknowledging her in the song, but he didn’t. He “stole behind her in the frozen foods and he touched her on her sleeve.”

 

That’s typical. We tend to try and unthaw what is frozen in our past and hope we can change it to affect a different outcome.

 

Fogelberg sings “she didn’t recognize my face at first, but then her eyes flew open wide. She went to hug me and she spilled her purse

And we laughed until we cried.”

 

That first line says to me the past was willing to move on also had we not summoned it. The second line says “when she spilled her purse”, all that was associated with that memory of 2013 came spilling out as well.

 

Then, of course, comes the awkward laughing that usually follows an embarrassing situation.

 

Fogelberg goes on to sing, “We took her groceries to the checkout stand, the food was totalled up and bagged. We stood there lost in our embarrassment, as the conversation dragged.”

 

This to me represents that we’re willing to take everything (good and bad) from theprevious year and hitch them to our wagons set for the upcoming year.

Isn’t a new year supposed to be all about starting over?

 

The song continues, “We went to have ourselves a drink or two, but couldn't find an open bar. We bought a six-pack at the liquor store, and we drank it in her car.”

 

To acquiesce to a bar, means the encounter was to last for longer than a few moments. The fact they “found a six-pack and drank it in her car” meant the time they were to spend reminiscing was to be for only a short time.

 

The chorus of the song is almost self-explanatory and, to me, says a toast was given for the innocence of what 2013 began as, the realization of what it had become and the diffidence the future represents.

 

“We drank a toast to innocence, we drank a toast to now. And tried to reach beyond the emptiness, but neither one knew how.”

 

Fogelberg goes on to sing how “she married her an architect who kept her warm and safe and dry. She would have liked to say she loved the man, but she didn't like to lie.”

 

To me this says, despite the fact last year showed a promise of growth, prosperity and safeness, 2013 couldn’t keep it’s promises.

 

The next few verses where Fogelberg sings, “I said the years had been a friend to her, and that her eyes were still as blue. But in those eyes I wasn't sure if I saw doubt or gratitude,” it’s as if he is saying despite the ugliness of the past and present, there is still some who can find beauty to behold from 2013. 

 

The last line questions whether 2013 can give people the security they seek or provide at least a gratefulness we persevered. 

 

In the third-to-last verse of the song, Fogelberg sings, “She said she saw me in the record stores, and that I must be doing well. I said the audience was heavenly, but the traveling was hell.”

 

That to me says 2013 takes credit for the success of those who are employed, but us workers - though we are grateful for our jobs -  are growing weary of the  meticulous demands associated with our jobs (taxes, medical insurance, etc.).

 

Next, Fogelberg sings,  ‘The beer was empty and our tongues were tired and running out of things to say. she gave a kiss to me as I got out and I watched her drive away.”

 

The time has come to stop talking about the past and move forward. Give a kiss goodbye to 2013 and let it fade into the distance.

 

Fogelberg’s final verse goes like this: “Just for a moment I was back at school and felt that old familiar pain. And as I turned to make my way back home, the snow turned into rain.”

 

In our mind’s eye, we can get tricked into thinking things weren’t so bad in the past. But then our conscience reminds us of the pain associated with the past and the pleasantness of the memory quickly melts away.

 

Turning to make your way back home, means we’re abandoning what’s holding us in the past (and present for that matter) and moving us forward. The snow turning into rain depicts spring - a new life and a new beginning.

 

Listen to the song anew. See if it doesn’t conjure up that Old Lang Syne  - without the “same”.