I woke up today singing in my head ‘steal away’, an old spiritual.  We used to sing this around the campfire at Methodist Youth camp. Beautiful harmonies from our young voices.  I knew that “I have to go to camp ground” was about dying.  Paul Robeson’s “Deep River” was about the same theme.  Other songs included ‘if you get to heaven before I do, just bore a hole and pull me through’.  In some way, these songs are comforting. What relevance did they have to me, this budding rationalist skeptic teenager?  Of course, I also loved songs were more relevant to my life, like in Cindy Cindy: “every time she kissed me she stole my bubble gum”.

As I age, the mortality theme seems more relevant. When I saw the trailer for ‘Still Julia’ about Alzheimer’s and I felt very disturbed and decided not to see that movie yet.   The film The Imitation Game showed a lonely, beaten down genius turning the lights out on his beloved machine and probably himself.  These are emotional, relevant topics for us as we age.  Teenagers often are accused of acting as if they were immortal. Still, death has been a teen cultural meme for a long time, and there’s probably a reason.

So I will keep enjoying old camp songs as long as they linger in my head.

1/29/15