BREXIT, Not a Breakup Song
I awakened on Sunday morning. My first thought of the day, on Thursday a majority of Brits decided to leave the EU. The European Union is a block of nations that have agreed to use a common currency, to establish a common regulation of trade, and to have open borders easing the movement of citizens between member countries. Britain has been a member since 1973, though it retained the Pound as their currency. Lately there is growing social unrest in all of Europe on account of rapidly changing factors. Now the Brits have decided that they are done, severing the ties, rejecting the comity with France, Germany and the smaller EU member nations. Wow!
In my fathers day The Brits were fire bombing German cities, and the Germans were dropping V-2s into London. How bad can things get? That bad, when a people decide against moving ahead, suffering the patient problem solving necessary to an enduring relationship.
I love break-up songs as much as, maybe more, than any other rock-n-roll story line. They are a look back at failure through the patina lens of time’s passage. They are ballads that help us get through. But they obfuscate, clean up, and make art of what was wreckage. How many divorces are amicable? How much legal, administrative, financial, and family heavy lifting looms when the tie is severed? Words fail to describe the potential for chaos that only hard work and luck partially stave off.
On Sunday afternoon I attended as planned, a concert by the Viking Park Singers. This is a community chorus of adults sponsored by the Gurnee Park District. Songs of the 50s and 60s were featured. Early in the program the chorus performed Unchained Melody, made popular by the Righteous Brothers. The song is a polished crystal of tune, lyric, and harmonious voice showing how unspeakably, divinely-fine, life can be. I listened and felt tears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ssySMc9B-Y
