A Pause for Reflection on a Song of Some Existential Nostalgic Reflective Worth

I've been thinking about this song recently. The lyrics suggest to me a fear about facing the upcoming seasons of one's life. The beginning of the song characterizes the flame of youth still burning strong, holding onto the extreme pleasures of life, eating up as much of life's worldly pleasures as fast as one can while the strength of youth burns bright.

"I'm feeling rough, I'm feeling raw, I'm in the prime of my life.
Let's make some music, make some money, find some models for wives.
I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin, and f^%$ with the stars.
You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars."

And so the singer declares:

"This is our decision, to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun."

But the fear that's hidden deep in the heart rears it's head here:

"Yeah, it's overwhelming, but what else can we do.
Get jobs in offices, and wake up for the morning commute.
Forget about our mothers and our friends"

Yet the reality that is realized is that for all their sucking up of life's extreme pleasures, they cannot but help understanding that:

"We're fated to pretend
To pretend
We're fated to pretend
To pretend"

The following for me is the important piece. It's important because it speaks to that part of one that has come to a realization. This realization has to do with the moment of an initial realization, which is that one is just pretending to stave off growing up. This realization may manifest as a kind of nostalgia for when the person was young, when the comforts of home - and all that the word entails - were the comforts of absolute security.

"I'll miss the playgrounds and the animals and digging up worms
I'll miss the comfort of my mother and the weight of the world
I'll miss my sister, miss my father, miss my dog and my home
Yeah, I'll miss the boredom and the freedom and the time spent alone."

And for those who reject the realization but continue pretending that they can stave off the seasons of life with pure extreme worldly pleasures:

"There's really nothing, nothing we can do
Love must be forgotten, life can always start up anew.
The models will have children, we'll get a divorce
We'll find some more models, everything must run it's course."

One final course, I guess for these, is the course of many a rockstar:

"We'll choke on our vomit and that will be the end
We were fated to pretend
To pretend
We're fated to pretend
To pretend"


I'm not sure that the last part of this song does much for me, nor do I think all rockstars end up this way or actually think this way. I do know that realizing 'being', that is, coming to a new level of self-awareness can be a painful process; for what comes with it is an acute view of one's mortality, where the weight of the world demands the strength of youth become focused in order to carry it. One might remember not having the need to care at the time because it was a burden for parents and there was a home to shelter the young from struggles and hardships. Parents grow old and pass away as the seasons pass away. But as the seasons advance, so does one advance with age, with learning, with responsibility; and whatever family one has wrought looks to him/her for security now. It's at this moment one can call upon the nostalgia and hope that it gives him/her strength to shoulder the umbrella for his/her youth from the deluge that can be life.

Yet, it is heart-wrenching to know that there are some that will never have such a nostalgia due to the loss or the 'never had' of parents and home. I may think upon nostalgia, perhaps with sadness at its passing. But there is a deeper sadness I feel in the face of the fact that many can't even have the solace of a nostalgia of family. Life for people with these kinds of experiences is one in which strength is found through different means. I suppose they might say, 'don't pity me,'. But pity is not what I mean by sadness. The sadness that I'm talking about has more in common with a deep respect and awe; though it is sad to think that life can be that way.