Remembering the Forgotten Song

Natalie Merchant and Listening to the Song Within

In 1993 Natalie Merchant, the lead singer of 10,000 Maniacs, began to pursue a solo career and left her highly popular band. I was in high school at the time, and not a big 10,000 Maniacs fan (although their cover of Patti Smith’s “Because the Night” was on constant rotation on MTV and had become an ear-worm). 

By 1995, I was finishing my junior year. A consummate reader of Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly, I was aware that Merchant had her solo debut album in the works. The album, Tigerlily, was released in July of that year. I loved that album. Merchant’s subtle, sparse, and quiet melodies sparked my imagination and I pondered her lyrics and the emotions these evoked. 

It’s been almost 30 years since Tigerlily’s release, and despite visiting Merchant’s musical catalog over the years, the songs on Tigerlily have faded into the recesses of my mind; it was an artifact of a time I felt truly alive, inspired, full of opportunity, bounty, and possibility. 

Recently, it was much to my surprise when sitting in my dentist’s waiting room, I heard the opening notes of Tigerlily’s second single, “Wonder”, play on the radio. The song immediately took me back to those high school years, to the past and to the magic of that time in my life. I felt uplifted, joyous, and free as I sat in that chair, waiting to be called in and have my teeth x-rayed and cleaned. I remembered this forgotten song, and accompanying that memory was a sense of optimism and peace.  

“The Forgotten Song”, a section of chapter 21, is one of the most beautiful in the Course’s text. The section discusses our inability to truly understand and make sense of the world when we judge all that we see and hear. We think we know better, we think we have the correct answer, response, or course of action. We think we know what others are thinking, why others react as they do and what actions they should take. We judge the words and actions of others. When we do this, we fail to listen to each other, to see each other, and to relate to one another as children of God. Yet deep down, inside of each of us, there is something that let’s us know this is not the way things should be.

 The Course likens this interior sense to a forgotten song as discussed in the quote below. 

Listen,--perhaps you catch a hint of an ancient state not quite forgotten; dim, perhaps, and yet not altogether unfamiliar, like a song whose name is long forgotten, and the circumstances in which you heard completely unremembered. Not the whole song has stayed with you, but just a little wisp of melody, attached not to a person or a place or anything particular. But you remember, from just this little part, how lovely was the song, how wonderful the setting where you heard it, and how you loved those who were there and listened with you.

The notes are nothing. Yet you have kept them with you, not for themselves, but as a soft reminder of what would make you weep if you remembered how dear it was to you. You could remember, yet you are afraid, believing you would lose the world you learned since then. And yet you know that nothing in the world you learned is half so dear as this. Listen, and see if you remember an ancient song you knew so long ago and held more dear than any melody you taught yourself to cherish since.

Photo by OC Gonzalez on Unsplash

We are asked to listen to this forgotten song. We are asked to remember that letting go of our judgments, our grievances, our anger and our fear will enable us to return to our truth as children of God. In letting go of our judgements and in remembering and standing firm in who we are, we begin to transform the ways in which we see the world. We move away from darkness and fear to light and love. 

I am sure many of you have had an experience where you’ve heard a song, long forgotten, and in hearing it has awakened a sense of who you were and what was possible at one time in your life. In listening to “Wonder”, I realized that a part of myself I believed was bygone was actually still with me, and that this truth about myself and who I am has never changed. In listening to the forgotten song within, I more fully realize who I am and begin to see past the differences between myself and others. I begin to recognize that we all share this same forgotten song.  

When we look within and stop listening to the voices of this world and start to listen to the forgotten song, we begin to surrender our judgements, our assumptions, the harm we have caused and the harm we have experienced. The forgotten song is always there. The truth is always there. We are called to remember it, and to live it in our thoughts, our words, our deeds, and our relationships.

Have you had a moment when hearing a long forgotten song, you’ve remembered something about yourself? What are your thoughts on the “The Forgotten Song” section of the Course? Have you had an experience of listening to the song within? I’d love to read your thoughts. Leave a comment by clicking below.

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