Writings in the Sand

This Too Shall Pass

This blog post inspired by the 48 Hour Challenge Media Prompt due August 7, 2020.
Prompt: Music video “This Too Shall Pass” by OK Go


I am one of those people who always need to know the lyrics to a song in order to know if I like it or not. I’ve been caught out before, being drawn in by a catchy hook and infectious melody only to find out a song that I thought I liked was really about something horrible and I couldn’t sing it in front of my children. So I did look up the lyrics of the song but first I listened to the music and watched the video.

The visuals immediately spoke to me. The music was merely background to the message that the video was presenting. I liked the music, but it wasn’t what made an impression on me first.

I guess it’s because I was having a rough day. I just got off track today, that’s all. I couldn’t find any words to write. Any words I had previously written proved not to be good enough. I felt like everything in my life was out of my control and I couldn’t do anything to get it back to normal. And then the dominoes started falling in the video, and things just took off from there and I realized that this song perfectly fit my life today. It’s just one reaction after another after another, seeming to follow a prescribed course but ultimately leading to chaos.

That’s not really a good message, but that is where the lyrics did save it. This too shall pass. We know that’s true, at least we acknowledge it intellectually, but on a really bad day when your life is zooming along knocking over this and that and you cannot prevent the cause and effect, it’s not so easy to remember.

Still, while all the chaos is going on, they just keep reassuring the listener that “this too shall pass” and recommending that “you can’t keep letting it get you down”.

The lyrics are a bit simple and repetitive, but perhaps a simple message is sometimes the most effective. Sometimes you don’t need a complex philosophical message, you just need to hear that we all get down, we all have burdens that we carry around and that tomorrow is another day. A day that might bring relief, that might bring resolution.

So, I don’t know if I am a new fan of this group or their music, but for a few minutes today I was able to stop my inner drama and see the bigger picture.

Of course, I will probably go right back to feeling sorry for myself, but that too shall pass.