Music is Eternal

I didn't even know the man.  But when I heard him singing on the radio yesterday (Same Old Lang Syne), it brought back a flood of memories--a bittersweet reminder of love lost and another loss, Dan Fogelberg himself.  What a huge loss for all of us.

The first time I bought one of his record albums, a double record set, I scanned through the song lyrics one by one, drinking in his words.  So poetic and profound, how did I not come to appreciate this man until this point in time, I wondered.  Friends had talked about his songs while I was oblivious.  But when I did read his lyrics for the first time I thought:  These songs are true poetry.  They could stand alone without any music at all.

But of course the music was wonderful, too.

And now it's Christmastime so Same Old Lang Syne is played again on the radio quite often from November through January.  The song always made me sad, but even more so now that Dan Fogelberg has died and left the world a little sadder, a little emptier, devoid of the musical contributions he had yet to deliver.

But like photographs that capture pieces of youth, moments in time, Dan's songs have been captured on CDs, ours to enjoy and revisit every time we play them.  What a fortunate thing indeed...to know that music is eternal.