Until recently, I didn’t find much comfort in the phrase “everything passes”. It’s not that I didn’t believe it–it’s pretty difficult to deny–but rather that “everything passing” was what troubled me in the first place. I’m a naturally anxious person, and I’m comforted by consistency, by what you can rely on every day no matter what happens. Of course, that’s in short supply in this world; you’ll eventually leave high school, leave college, leave your first job, leave home. That meant I often found myself worrying about the inevitable passage of time, wondering if it was all going to be downhill moving forward.
Then, all this happened. Now, I’m all about everything passing. One day, I will wake up, and Donald Trump won’t be president. One day, I won’t have to worry about my parents catching their literal deaths because some schmuck coughed in their direction. One day, I’ll be able to go out to lunch without being waited on by a guy in a hazmat suit. One day, the idea that innocent black people shouldn’t be summarily executed by the police will be widely accepted. In fact, what fills me with dread now is the idea that things won’t pass, that things will just go on like this, that the world will be less interesting and kind and lively each passing day.
As such, the song “Everything Passes” is a balm in these times. Recorded by the LA-based musician Carey Clayton, the lyrics are two simple sentences, repeated over and over: “Everything passes in time/It always does.” It’s the kind of statement that can feel banal, even cliche, in the wrong hands. Luckily, it’s in the right hands with Clayton, who possesses both a lovely voice and an instinctive sense of pacing.
Clayton lists both Bon Iver and Radiohead as influences in his music, and you can hear both Justin Vernon and Thom Yorke in his falsetto. It’s as clear and delicate as crystal, but he understands, like Vernon and Yorke, that “delicate” does not mean “weak”. As the song builds from its gentle, ambient-tinged opening to its exultant climax, Clayton isn’t overwhelmed or drowned out; you can still hear him, empathetic and gentle, telling you what you need to hear.
Clayton isn’t the only voice on “Everything Passes”; he’s invited some of his favorite collaborators to provide backing vocals, and the way those voices, male and female, bounce off of each other and lift each other higher provide some of the song’s greatest thrills. Clayton is smart about the way he paces the song, which helps it reach the great heights it aims for. From the very start, with those wordless “oooh”s and stirring piano chords, it’s obvious that it’s going to build to something grand. And yet it doesn’t feel rushed, either; to use a cliche, it understands that the journey is just as important as the destination.
Maybe I’m going soft after months of climbing up the walls, but “Everything Passes” hits me right in my soft spot. It’s such a warm, reassuring song; it wraps itself around you like the blanket you’ve swaddled yourself in since April. It tells you that things will be OK, and even if you don’t believe it you give in.
