Life, as we’re all well aware, is unpredictable. And no matter how much we prepare or how hard we fight against it, change is inevitable. As George Harrison declared in his presently-relevant ballad “All Things Must Pass”: “sunshine doesn’t last all morning/ a cloudburst doesn’t last all day… all things must pass/ all things must pass away.” Yet it seems as though, as people, we possess an inherent affinity for fixating on the ways in which Life and Time masterfully work their magic on us. There is a tendency I’m all-too-familiar with, to revisit particular instances in our lives that visibly stand outside a major bifurcation.
Through much of this pandemic, I have mused on how I got to spend the penultimate day of the last year gallivanting freely across New York City. At the time, the coming of the new year and of the new decade it heralded, looked like the quintessential picture of an open canvas rife with possibility, or like a blank check you could cash anytime, anywhere with no problem. On that rainy and blustery night in the Big Apple, I felt like my personal ambitions were the clear and open skies setting the limit for how far or high I could go. And I could see pretty far out. Like many others at the time, I embraced that feeling happily and willingly. But as I quickly came to learn, it was less than forty-eight hours later that COVID, the most uttered and maligned word of the year in any language, would first be referenced by the scientific community. My life, and everyone else’s lives, would invariably be put on pause, and deviated from the path I was on, to one whose terminus is still difficult to make out. Fortunately, as Ol’ Blue Eyes once crooned: “that’s life”, and there is a necessary and recognizable solace to be found in that statement.
Closing in on a full year later, enter Greta Morgan. The indie singer-songwriter who most recently joined Vampire Weekend for their Father of the Bride tour in 2019, has just released her first song in four years, “When the Sun Comes Up”, in which she probes into the moments in her own life when innocence, oblivion, and fate stood hand-in-hand.
Musically, the song isn’t any different from other contemporary folk numbers. A mellow acoustic guitar drives the plot along via simple three-chord changes that repeat throughout, while a soft-spoken bass reinforces the musical ground on which Morgan and her band take this reflective stroll. There is a piano that deepens the piece’s more emotive moments by amplifying the melancholy that’s at the heart of the song’s subject matter, but over all, the track is predictably minimalist. Morgan’s vocals are hushed and clear, an element that deepens the feeling of intimacy that’s the song’s calling card. Compositionally, “When The Sun Comes Up” follows a chronological narrative arc told in a standard verse-chorus format, and from the very beginning it’s clear that what we’re here for is the story.
“I’m not afraid of seeing ghosts in the night
I’m not afraid of the boogeyman running his hands down my spine
I’m only afraid of the darkness that doesn’t end when the sun comes up”
This is the song’s refrain, and it is here that Morgan lays bare her fears without regret. This chorus is the crux of the entire song. If you look carefully, Morgan posits, you will find that expectations come with their own ceiling. And you always know what you’re getting into if that particular something is familiar. It may sound obvious to say that, but it is fundamentally true that, as people, we are better emotionally prepared to deal with the generic idea of life’s calamities: illness, the loss of loved ones, unemployment, than we are equipped to deal with their actual unexpected occurrence. This existential recognition is as particularly alarming as it is true, and Morgan spends most of the song examining the subversion and derailment of expectations:
“My parents think I’m sleeping at Jackie’s
Her parents think she’s sleeping at mine.”
In the second verse, she tells us that:
“My boyfriend Time will join the army…
But he won’t make it overseas
He won’t have to see a war
His comrades will get him wasted
And leave him for three days in a car.”
Are these unpredictable and unavoidable twists of fate omens of good or of bad fortune? It’s hard to say. For the most part, they are the radical upending of internalized presuppositions. They can also be understood as examples of a morally-neutral, poetic irony that life decided to throw in at the last minute. There is a strophe in which Morgan tells us that it was her army boyfriend who gifted her his guitar before his deployment, potentially altering the course of her life to the point that she’s now able to recount that moment in song. Overall, however, it seems as though morality and will are on the opposite sides of the same human coin; one that is continuously being flipped with no end in sight.
This is the kind of statement that’s bound to shake anyone’s belief in self-determination, and challenge the very concept of free will. Yet Morgan chooses to look at things through the lens of practical optimism:
“If I don’t get to live again
I can’t let the bad guys win
One last look before I go
I’ll be overcome with love.”
Ultimately, in spite of all of life’s perceived adversity and insouciance, our actions still carry consequences, and Morgan is willing to express satisfaction in living out a life that’s virtuous and morally sound. Life is as much about the little things, she says, as it is about being present in the moment. And the key to personal fulfillment isn’t contingent on preparing for some abstract and future doom’s day scenario. Fulfillment is possible only by understanding the true value of the present, and being humbly aware as we move forward one step at a time.
