"Older Chests" - Damien Rice

 "Older Chests"
Damien Rice
Lyrics

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So many people write songs about time.  Generally speaking, those songs are the most powerful.  After all, don't we all feel as if time is our major competitor?  We are always racing it.  We are always victims of it. Sometimes we feel as if we are able to divide it for ourselves. We are quite happy to cut it into many small useful pieces.  But often we cut it too sharply and deeply.  And we realize that we in fact have no time at all.

Damien Rice is an Irish singer-songwriter who has released two albums - "O" in 2002 and "9" in 2006.  Both his songs and lyrics are simple, but they speak with an deep honesty that is almost painful to hear.  His songs speak like stories, in which there are no lies.  And when he talks of "older chests" to convey the passage of time, we hear more than just time passing in his rhetoric.  We hear loneliness, regret, and most importantly, hope mingling between, attempting to drape over everything else. 

Don't we all worry about consistency?  We want things to "stay the same" so that we know in some ways where our life is headed.  Perhaps we can't beat time but we can ride with it if we know how to ride.  If we maintain some constant motion in our lives, our growing pains hurt less.  The problem is that we can't always acquire that constant motion.  Sometimes we are too aware of what we lack.  We leave friends behind, not intentionally, but because of convenience.  We give up on elements of ourselves that we don't have time to nurture any longer.  It is then that time becomes our worst enemy.  It detaches us from things that we love.  It takes us away from what we need.  But in a way doesn't it also show us what we need?  Doesn't it also implement itself where it belongs?  Maybe we seek to replace vital elements of our lives that convenience has taken away from us momentarily.  And we lash out at time for prohibiting us from doing so.  But maybe these things can't be replaced.  Maybe time is our advocate in that it sets us in our place.  We can't always be satisfied.  We can't expect all of our needs to travel with us when we venture into darker waters.  If we do, we are being ungrateful.  We are closing ourselves off.  We are surrendering to impatience instead of paving our own paths.  We are indulging in self-pity instead of finding a way to win.

To others, we might insist that they should "pass us by" because "we'll be fine."  "Just give us time."  But in doing so, we are prolonging our problems.  No. We are not fine.  We're alone.  We're not fine.  We are lacking what lies now in the "older chests" of our existence, kept safely away until the time comes again to unlock them.  But can't we be okay with being lonely?  Can't we realize that we will always be lonely in some respects?  After all, in believing ourselves to be lonely when we are surrounded by everything we always wanted, aren't we alienating ourselves in a different way?  Aren't we offending what we are lucky enough to have?  People try to understand, but it's hard to accept that their presence just isn't enough.  Maybe it's not.  But it should be.  And they know that, so why can't we?

After all, "we always seem to need the help of someone else to mend that shelf."  But maybe that's our problem.  Maybe we're scared of instability, or of being alone.  But how can we create something stable if we're too afraid of failure?  We have to have faith that despite our lack of "older chests" we can indeed form new ones.  And we can have the patience to do so, accepting that we won't right away.  After all, anything worthwhile, in some manner, "starting small and growing in time."