Saturn

Saturn, Sleeping at Last

I spent the day today talking to a friend from work about a song that I’d recommended to him: Saturn. I normally love Sleeping at Last’s songs, but this one in particular has a story behind it. I’d heard it quite a few times and really loved it, and then another friend from work showed me a video that talked about life and humans and how we are basically clouds in the flesh. Saturn had been the background music for that video. Since then, I remembered that friend every single time I listened to the song.

It is so pretty. The music, at first, yellow and sharp, expressing sadness like it won’t be ignored. The yellow keeps getting thicker, taking more form by the moment, until the piano kicks in, blue and soothing, like water to scalded skin. Each key from the piano is a new ripple in the vast black seas of the song. And the yellow is still there, but it is less sad now, like it’s finally found a friend. And then the piano gets a little stronger. That’s my new friend’s favorite part of the song. I sit at my desk at work and I play the song in my head. I can see the piano notes turning from gentle sky blue to a darker shade of the same color, blending more into the black sea that is the back of my mind. The instruments harmoniously start to spread in my head, filling out the entire scene before me until I can’t even see the screen and the desk anymore. All I can see is the music.

Ryan starts singing. “You taught me the courage of stars before you left.” I smile as I do every time I hear the mention of stars. The courage of stars … what must that be like? But then my smile turns into a sad one as I realize, every time, that he singing to a person who passed beyond. I remember my deepest fear of losing a loved one. I always imagine Ryan singing to a grandmother or a very old tutor who is accepting death solemnly, wisely, the way a person who knows the courage of stars would.

“How light carries on endlessly even after death.”

Light blue light intercepts my vision, gently, calmly, like it’s in no hurry. Of course, physics-wise, this may not be true; light could be super busy. But not to me. I imagine life going on. Planet Earth is gone, and light still carries on. I like the sound of it. It’s somehow … quiet.

“With shortness of breath, you explained the infinite: how rare and beautiful it truly is to even exist.”

I smile.

Too much beauty lies in these words to even try to express. I just smile.

“I couldn’t help but ask you to say it all again. I tried to write it down, but I could never find a pen.”

The image keeps getting clearer. That old woman lying in a hospital bed, holding her grandson’s hand, both looking out of the window that’s taking up an entire wall, but instead of buildings lining up the horizon ahead, there’s space: stars, planets, vacuum. The scenes move as the woman speaks, explains. I would like to call her “Saturn.” Ryan is listening like his life is depending on it, and he keeps trying relentlessly to find a pen to write down the rare gems Saturn is telling, but he can’t find one.

For some reason, that is my favorite line in the song. Maybe because it is the one that scares me the most: to be unable to write something so beautiful and important down.

“I’d give anything to hear you say it one more time: that the universe was made just to be seen by my eyes.”

Tears.

My eyes. Mine. Ryan’s. Yours. Mine. Ours.

As I listen to the words repeat themselves and then the music wrap up, I feel like I somehow lost a friend. I feel my heart a little heavier in my chest because the song is ending, but I can’t help but smile because I lived such a beautiful thing all over again.

Saturn reminds me of friends, situations, good things, sad things, but one thing is for sure: it was never and never will be an ordinary song. It holds the universe somewhere in the folds of its lyrics.

July 5th, 2019