Transitions are going down all over town and earth.  It’s that time of year and life.  Here are two all-time great songs that relay relevant perspectives.  Even if you’ve heard before, these are songs worthy of revisiting. Give a good listen you who are transitioning, and young and old parents.

First up is Tom Rush’s rendering of one of the best growing-up-and-moving-on songs ever written.  In Murray McLaughlin’s “Child’s Song,” a son tells his family it’s time to leave home.  The lyrics are at times devastating (we think of our own when Rush sings from the older son’s perspective: “little sister you’ll have to wait a while to come along”).  But proper perspective and lift are provided as well:

“Thanks for all you done it may sound hollow
Thank you for the good times that we’ve known
But I must find my own road now to follow
You will all be welcome in my home.”

Listen in.  Hate/have to let ’em go.

Tom Rush–Child’s Song

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We wonder how much more difficult it became for Rush and McLaughlin to sing this song later in life when their parents were aged.  Be mindful transitioners, but all as well.

As a coda, Rush also timely performed “Child’s Song” recently on Prairie Home Companion (at 1:43:50).

The other song is our favorite performance ever by the great Frank Sinatra.  Forgot the swingin’, finger-snappin’, Rat-packin’,  upbeat Sinatra (though there’s a time and a place).  We’ll take Sinatra singing a slow, afflicting song any day.  Nobody has sung a song so well while conveying the matters of the heart.

Here, on September of My Years, an older Sinatra looks back on his life, and the remorse is palpable, though life’s resolve carries the day.

As Stan Cornyn captured well on the liner notes regarding the recording session for this record, “Tonight will not swing.  Tonight is for serious….He sings of the penny days….He sings with perspective….He looks back….He has lived through two lives, and can sing now of September.  Of the bruising days….September can be an attitude or an age or a wistful reality.  For this man, it is a time of love.  A time to sing.  A thousand days hath September.”

We have repeatedly had to pull ourselves back up after hearing Sinatra’s phrasing in the lines:

“As a man, who has never paused at wishing wells
Now I’m watching children’s carousels
And their laughter’s music to my ears.”

Every time we hear this song, we lament lost opportunities with children, family and friends.  Take heed.  We’re striving anew to reduce the lengthy list of possible regrets.

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/01-The-September-Of-My-Years.mp3|titles=01 The September Of My Years]