{"id":25016,"date":"2014-07-07T01:57:02","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T05:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=25016"},"modified":"2016-12-22T18:20:17","modified_gmt":"2016-12-22T23:20:17","slug":"half-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/07\/half-life.html","title":{"rendered":"Half Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/iframe>\n<\/p>The YouTube video above is of a very rough recording (one take, live, just me and a guitar) of a rough draft of a song that I started writing a while ago, when a niece of mine died. It was at that point just some rough ideas, snippets of lyrics, articulated as an outlet for grief.<\/p>\nI didn\u2019t pursue it further, until I saw the movie The Fault In Our Stars. That got me thinking once again about untimely deaths, cancer, transience, and oblivion.<\/p>\nThe original idea had simply played on the fact that \u201chalf life\u201d \u2013 which literally refers to the amount of time it takes for half of a quantity of a radioactive element to decay into a different element \u2013 is a phrase that also makes one think of \u201chalf a life\u201d \u2013 a life cut short too soon.<\/p>\nAs I started thinking about it again, lots of connections began to come to the fore. Radioactivity is connected with cancer. It also measures the long epochs which threaten to not merely erase the individual lives that are themselves so short, but whole civilizations, whole species, and all memory thereof.<\/p>\nMost of the lyrics that were very esoteric and had to do with the exploration of these atomic and geological resonances ended up being set aside. But hopefully the song still works. Today would have been my niece\u2019s birthday, and so it seem an appropriate time to share the song. Below are the lyrics, which are also included in the YouTube video.<\/p>\n<blockquote>Half Life<\/strong><\/p>\nVERSE:<\/p>\nYou were in your prime, but time \nRan out before your time \nHad fully come \nAnd now you\u2019re gone \nA stone now marks the place \nWith words that time must soon efface \nHow will they know \nThat you were?<\/p>\nCHORUS:<\/p>\nHalf life \nAll things must change \nOne rock decays \nAnd one remains \nThe world can never stay the same<\/p>\nVERSE:<\/p>\nAnd if a thousand years \nWon\u2019t pass before our eyes and ears \nHave passed away \nWill nothing stay? \nIt seems our sorrows last \nOur tears of liquid turn to gas \nThen into rain \nAnd fall again<\/p>\nCHORUS<\/p>\nBRIDGE:<\/p>\nIf the norm were two hundred years \nA life of ninety would seem small \nIt\u2019s better to have lived a half a life, \nthan not have lived at all<\/p>\nVERSE<\/p>\nYou were in your prime \nBut time ran out\u2026<\/p>\nCHORUS<\/p>\nFINAL CHORUS:<\/p>\nHalf life \nThe world is strange \nOne heart decays \nAnd one remains \nAnd I will never be the same<\/p>\n(c) 2014 James F. McGrath<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The YouTube video above is of a very rough recording (one take, live, just me and a guitar) of a rough draft of a song that I started writing a while ago, when a niece of mine died. 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