Remembering

Backdated, archival post

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Two nights ago, I was thinking about Odessey and Oracle (which is apparently a thing I do with some regularity), specifically how "Beechwood Park" begins with "Do you remember summer days just after summer rain?," and "Brief Candles" has the line "Brief candles in his mind, bright and tiny gems of memory."  So, memory or remembering are in two sequential songs on the album.

But then I got thinking about memory/remembering in other songs.  It also starts "Hung up on a Dream" (so, three sequential songs) - "Well, I remember yesterday."  And it's in "This Will Be Our" year, albeit in an opposite sort of way - "And I won't forget."

And, of course, back in the Decca days, there's "I Remember When I Loved Her" and "Remember You."

I've been working on transcribing the lyrics, but I haven't been putting too much effort into it (I've been working on other stuff, and even when I do work on transcription, I physically write it out, so I don't get much more than a line or two at a time).  Finding this makes me wonder whether there are other prominent themes.  There are at least two songs each for home/domesticity, dreams, and crying.  And, obviously, love is a pretty obvious theme, but looking for love songs isn't something I find particularly interesting.

At some point, I'd like to make a concordance of the lyrics (which would certainly help in finding these themes), but it seems like a pretty formidable task, and I'm not exactly sure how I would do it.