Dickens

listen to the song here: https://soundcloud.com/joel-crow/04-dickens



All that I ask is that your heart be softened as you walk in the sunlight, remembering me.
Many will speak of the sins I've committed.
I don't ask you to doubt, but I beg for mercy on my memory.




I've only ever played this song once publicly in this recorded version. I always talk myself up to playing these kind of songs but then when it comes time I back down because I think nobody will care to hear something like this at a coffee shop. I feel like most people just don't care for more depressing contemplative music, which describes many of the songs I've written. But I hope there is some kindred spirit out there who will appreciate this very short song based on a much more eloquent passage out of the book Great Expectations by Charles Dickens:
"For the very breath of beans and clover whispered to me that the day must come when it would be well for my memory that others walking in sunlight be softened as they thought of me."

Though I'm only a self-educated student of Dickens' work, I think I'm right in saying that Great Expectations is the most auto-biographical novel he ever wrote. Around the time he wrote it he was making what may have been the single greatest mistake of his lifetime, leaving his wife for another woman. Had he been a mere commoner again, as he was born, the separation from his wife would have been considered scandalous. But as it was, he was by now a hugely successful author, and men of his social standing could have certain indiscretions with impunity. But I believe that he knew it was all wrong, and I believe that in this one line he was speaking more for himself than he was for Pip.
There's been a novel and a movie made based on this scandal, and while I believe the truth should be told, I fully believe that they will portray Dickens as a far less honorable man than he really was. And while I know that I never will come to fame as he did, I feel this same yearning, I believe we all do. So let us do unto others as we would have posterity do unto us, and be softened as we walk in the sunlight remembering the good men and good women who lived, as we all do, in dire need of the Grace of Jesus Christ to cover our sins.