Somebody To Love
When the truth is found
To be lies,
And all the joy,
Within you dies…”
(Darby Slick)
I read this lyric yesterday from the song Somebody to Love on an internet post. I had to laugh a little as it struck me as kind of funny given the rhetoric of the current campaigns and the information or the misinformation we are enduring every day.
The song Somebody to Love was written by Darby Slick for his band The Great Society and released as a single in 1966. The Great Society also included his brother Jerry Slick and his sister-in-law Grace Slick.
Grace would ultimately leave The Great Society, and join another band known as The Jefferson Airplane. She would take the song, then titled Someone to Love, change the title to Somebody to Love, and along with her song White Rabbit, would help build the now classic album, Surrealistic Pillow.
And so it was, Somebody to Love, White Rabbit and Surrealistic Pillow would go down in rock and roll history, considered to be one of the “most influential and quintessential works of the early psychedelic rock era and 1960s counterculture.”
Ironically, in August of 2019, I was also inspired by these lyrics to write an essay titled Three Days of Peace, Love, and Wheels on the Bus. The inspiration for that essay, however, had nothing to do with lies and vanishing joy, just the opposite. The somebodies to love in that story were grandchildren as we made a long overdue visit to Florida.
I’ve heard at least some of the folks in our current contest have been promoting joy as a theme, but I am frankly just not feeling it.
Surrealistic maybe, but not joy.
Yeah, surrealistic, something that has a dreamlike atmosphere or quality. Maybe we are all tripping? Maybe we should all be sleeping on surrealistic pillows and reliving some of those “joys” associated with the sixties.
Well, then again maybe not.
But with less than thirty days left to this election season, regardless of who you are supporting, when all the truth is found to be lies, when all information is misinformation, and all the joy is confined to the ladies on The View, I don’t know about you, but I am ready to go back to listening to some music.
Because I think the truth is we should be praying for our brothers and sisters in the southeast, peace everywhere in the world where there is none, and focusing on a different truth.
Because the real “truth doesn’t reside in the minds of humanity, but completely outside of us, in the person of God. “
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
Maybe all truth isn’t lies.
Maybe there is a way to find some joy in that.
I haven’t written much in the past year.
Lack of joy may have contributed to that.
I’ve always enjoyed writing because it always made me happy.
So, bear with me while I practice writing and being happy.
But now I think I will go to church.
And hear the truth.
And when I come home, maybe I will listen to some music.
Maybe even some Jefferson Airplane.
And begin to enjoy me some joy.
Because joy and The Truth are not dead.
Postscript:
The photo above is from a couple of weeks ago when me and my somebody to love, participated for the third time in the Laurel View Village Que Classic 5K and 10K. Laurel View Village is the assisted living facility where Kim’s mom lives near Johnstown, PA. Not to mislead anyone, but the truth here is that we walked a 5K as our running days are behind us. It was a beautiful late September day in the Laurel View mountains.
Another fun fact, Somebody to Love, aka Someone to Love, was originally titled “Mind Full of Bread.” Too funny, there might be some truth to that.