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- Lazy Noon
- The Chains
- Just Like Honey
- DIY
There is a quote attributed to Henry David Thoreau that appears on Greek band Keep Shelly In Athens Facebook page, under Inspirations and Influences. It goes, “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.”
There’s something childlike and innocent in the thought of just sticking to your guns if it’s what you really want. In the wake of the recent death of one of America’s great writers, Ray Bradbury, we add to the discussion a passage from his short story, “Hail and Farewell,” when he writes, “I look at all the little children’s faces going by. And I sometimes think, What a shame, what a shame, that all these flowers have to be cut, all these bright fires have to be put out. What a shame these, all of these you see in schools or running by, have to get tall and unsightly and wrinkle and turn gray or get bald and finally, all bone and wheeze, be dead and buried off away. When I hear them laugh I can’t believe they’ll ever go the road I’m going. Yet here they come! I still remember Wordsworth’s poem: ‘When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.’ That’s how I think of children, cruel as they sometimes are, mean as I know they can be, but not yet showing the meanness around their eyes or in their eyes, not yet full of tiredness. They’re so eager for everything! I guess that’s what I miss most in older folks, the eagerness gone nine times out of ten, the freshness gone, so much of the drive and life down the drain. I like to watch school let out each day. It’s like someone threw a bunch of flowers out the school front doors. How does it feel, Willie? How does it feel to be young forever? To look like a silver dime new from the mint? Are you happy? Are you as fine as you seem?”
Sarah P., the lead singer of the group, writes and sings like someone faced with the stark reality of either choosing to keep fluttering and dancing or to move into the wrinkled, common hours of life that Thoreau warns against. “Just Like Honey,” is a song that marks the crossroads with a line drawn in the dirt with a broken off stick. It will either get crossed over or it will just remain looked at.