varying degrees of light

I Hope Tomorrow is Like Today
by Guster off of their album, Keep it Together AND the Wedding Crashers soundtrack.

I've always taken this song as a late night, pining for someone that doesn't even know it, song. Or maybe not even that, maybe just thinking about someone late at night and you don't want to wake them up, pull them out of bed and ask to have a drink. I'm awake, you're still sleeping. And the banality of this, the so-common tortures we commit on ourselves, The sun will rise like yesterday. I've been listening to this song for years, since before Wedding Crashers came out and my brother and I went to see it in the theaters seven or so times because 1) there wasn't much else to do in Sioux Center then and 2) what a funny movie. (They use this song when Owen Wilson's character is on his downward stint of crashing weddings by himself and Rachel McAdams' character is planning her wedding to douchehole. Not very fitting, actually, but still a gorgeous song.)

Today, for the first time and for whatever reason, I heard this song as a guy watching the lovely girl sleeping next to him in the morning. And he regards the sun rising out the window and he regales his thoughts, regales the girl, with this moment of meditation. And joy. I'm awake, you're still sleeping, the sun will rise like yesterday.
And maybe he's not all that clear or as completely self-assured about it all. Everything that we are now is everything we can't let go. Oh it's gone forever, far away... I hope tomorrow is like today. Somebody stop me - is there anything more beautiful than the affirmation of going through the risks and possibilities of human drama with someone? This will change everything, we're putting our emotions and maybe our existing friendship at risk... we may end up hating each other... let's keep doing this. I hope we do this tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and the next.

What I think happened, initially, was the tone of the music - the bass line especially - set me to think it was a song at night, wandering around thinking about that girl who, assured and at peace and not staying up, like the guy, thinking over and over again about the one brief run-in they had together. It's a nice song to listen to at night, but maybe it will be a song about the morning, when she's still sleeping and she looks like she's comfortable, that she feels safe. She feels safe next to the guy who's so happy, and dumbfounded, that he wakes up to make sure it's real.

And the music continues on, escalating, and the strum of the guitar celebrates with the quick drum roll, the classy piano, the na na na nas and there's a circus in the mind of the guy, the lucky guy, and he slowly lays back down and watches the sun wake the earth up out the window.

I'm awake, you're still sleeping
The sun will rise like yesterday
Everything that we are now
Is everything we can't let go
Oh its gone forever, far away
I hope tomorrow is like today
Don't you go away tomorrow
I don't think I could handle that
You're probably dreaming that you're flying on
Then you start to fall
But then you rise
and shine forever
Don't go away
I hope tomorrow is like today


Listen to this, listen to it again, listen to it at night and in the morning. And then listen to Simon and Garfunkel's Wednesday Morning 3 AM.

-Ben Kweller, apparently, had a hand in writing the song. That is neat.