Possibly a perfect song: Distant Sun by Crowded House

I don't pretend to know what you want.

Välkommen to sproutings issue #60.

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Let us acknowledge we’re now a week out from Christmas. Christmas with its wheelbarrow of expectations, its caravan of history. With its swirling excitement and memory, fear and hope. Butterflies flap, the sun passes over. It passes over again.

Since 2021 I have a carried a piece of paper with me on which I wrote some words by the late John O’Donohue. The words apply to everyday life and I read them every day.

May I live this day
Compassionate of heart
Clear in word
Gracious in awareness
Courageous in thought
Generous in love.

These words apply to every day in the way that water and fresh air apply to every day. I read them every day like I wake every day.

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Last week Sarah & I were lucky enough to be in the audience for a performance from Crowded House. It was my first time.

It was my first time but, having grown up in Melbourne, the songs of Crowded House - and Neil Finn’s other creative work - have infused me in the way that Earl Grey tea leaves infuse hot water through a strainer. The crowd seemed steeped.

Parts of Crowded House songs I find very challenging to sing, as I possess neither N Finn’s vocal range nor his sublime gift for harmony. But their songs are uplifting to hear. Mostly they are uplifting. Certainly, I find them to be works of art. Often I am moved.

Does an artist set out to provoke a response with their creation?
Does an artist create without thought for the audience?
Is an artist simply a medium through which a work is delivered to us from the universe?

I don’t know.
I don’t know.
Who can say?

What I do know, is that the song Distant Sun hits me hard. The whole of the song resonates like a church bell. Like a Rembrandt, the effect of the overall artwork is greater than that of the sum of its parts: glorious jangly guitar loop opening, hopeful progressions and a story older than Socrates.

Distant Sun was released in September 1993 as the first single from Crowded House’s fourth studio album, the thoughtfully, insightfully titled: Together Alone (1993).

At their show last Tuesday, among many oldies and not-so-oldies, Crowded House played Distant Sun. The time was around 22:26 – and I know this because I took a brief time-stamped video of the songs’ opening. But I swiftly stopped recording. The song called for my attention - called for me to be present. Without warning, but at the same time unsurprisingly, tears began to roll freely down my face like rain (like rain).

Distant Sun unravels me in three parts. Part 1 always strikes me as the sheer mystery of humans on this planet. This correlates with my life’s understanding (you can never know another person).

For instance, it is possible for me to stop and think about things that I felt today. And it is then possible to think about trying to convert those feelings into language (already this is impossible). And then it is possible to think about trying to pass on this information to another human, using this limited, faulty device we have called language (an impossible thing cannot become more impossible, but still). And I recognise that information is lost at every step in any communication chain. And then it is possible to think about the other person making their own interpretations of what they understand me to have conveyed (further degrees of impossibility scaled here).

So. You can never know another person.
And then I think about relationships.

Tell me all the things you would change
I don’t pretend to know what you want
When you come around and spin my top
Time and again, time and again

And I think about words spoken in anger or frustration. Certainly in misunderstanding. I think about certainty, conviction, absolutism. I think of curiosity and I think of confusion. I think of the Great Mystery.

No fire where I lit my spark
I am not afraid of the dark
Where your words devour my heart
And put me to shame, put me to shame

Possibly the real wonder of human contact is that we can be understood to any degree at all. I see us as Very Small Actors on a Very Large Stage.

When your seven worlds collide
Whenever I am by your side
And dust from a distant sun
Will shower over everyone

Part 2 unravels me further as it refers to knowing oneself.

Still so young to travel so far
Old enough to know who you are
Wise enough to carry the scars
Without any blame, there’s no one to blame

And while I realise that any life with others will have its challenges, it is heartening to understand the possibility of knowing oneself. That is vital grounding to have. And not common, probably.

But always the gravitational pull of others.

It’s easy to forget what you learned
Waiting for the thrill to return
Feeling your desire burn
And drawn to the flame

When your seven worlds collide
Whenever I am by your side
Dust from a distant sun
Will shower over everyone
Dust from a distant sun
Will shower over everyone

Part 3 I unravels me completely like a ball of wall tumbling to the floor, as I see it as an offering. I love that the line “I don’t pretend to know what you want” is repeated from Verse 1. I love that the self-knowledge and Great Mystery alluded to in Parts 1 and 2 lead us here — you don’t need to know what another person wants.

You need only make an offer.

And I’m lying on the table
Washed out in a flood
Like a Christian fearing vengeance from above
I don’t pretend to know what you want
But I offer love

Seven worlds will collide
Whenever I am by your side
Dust from a distant sun
Will shower over everyone

As time slips by
As time slips by

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Here is what Neil Finn himself says about Distant Sun – via his website.

“‘Seven worlds collide’... A lot of the time, the first lines that I get just pop out, so I don’t really remember what happened with that. It’s a reference to the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, which I must have been talking about with somebody. It’s a likely place for extra-terrestrials to come from, supposedly, for people who follow those kind of leads, and is a significant cosmological part of the night sky.

Apart from that, I don’t know really. ‘Tell me all the things you would change; I don’t pretend to know what you want’ - it’s just wanting to get to know somebody, the unknowability of people, and the different influences that come from way, way out there in the universe that we don’t even know about.”

— Neil Finn

https://www.neilfinn.com/distant-sun

Distant sun.

For whatever reason, a strong and gentle force reaches for me whenever I hear this song and it grabs me by the heart. It holds me. Nothing about that reach hurts, but within me, something opens.

Maybe this force reaches across dimensions. Maybe it reaches across time and space.

Probably, it is impossible to know how a whole song works or how each part of a song works, or how a song could affect my body in the way that it does. Even if I could know, I would rather not.

For now, I very much like the thought that to navigate this world, I can put knowledge aside - I can put thinking aside - and instead follow my 100% fully-functioning heart.

Make an offer.

Make another offer.

I don’t pretend to know what you want, but I offer love.

Generously.

Play on.

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Thank you to all subscribers and all readers however you found this. Last Saturday, the Sproutings subscriber scoreboard counter ticked over to 100. The ton is up!

If you enjoy these posts, please consider subscribing, sharing or both. This work is where I find creativity and freedom. Since January I have posted observations, fiction, haiku, stories while I follow a path of joy. Paid subscribers supplement my regular work that I can perform only at a part time fraction given limitations after brain injury. I hope you enjoyed this.