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Home » Songs of friendship and comfort

Songs of friendship and comfort

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s a genre, and a rather large one. Here are just a few examples – heavy on the Bee Gees, of course.

I always liked Ringo’s quirky voice:

Early-ish Bee Gees:

Got to include this one. And she’s got my hair, although in a different color:

My guys again:

Back in the days when they were still speaking to each other:

I had this LP in college:

A single Bee Gee, Robin Gibb, recorded just a few years before he died but released posthumously:

And this one is about friendship, too. So beautiful:

Comments

Songs of friendship and comfort — 48 Comments

  3. I was once in an online discussion of poems about friendship and was surprised how few poems fit that bill.

    There are more songs that apply. The first one off the top of my head is:

    –Elton John, “Daniel”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA78e27R_J4

    Daniel is leaving that night on a plane for Spain and the narrator already misses him terribly. But the lyrics never explain why Daniel is leaving nor what their relationship is exactly. The lyrics say “my brother” but it doesn’t seem to be a blood relationship.

    According to wiki Bernie Taupin, the lyricist, was inspired by an article in Newsweek about a wounded Vietnam vet, who wanted to escape the attention he received after coming home.

  5. huxley,

    ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’ is another Elton John song about friendship. Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics about a real incident with Elton. Long John Baldry is the ‘someone’ (sugar bear).

    Elton’s willingness to record that song says a lot about him even in his wild days.

  7. Friends and comfort.
    Interesting collection of songs and thoughts… and if I overstep here I apologize in advance…

    but I can’t help thinking you are missing something uniquely of Gerard today…and I hope in that you discover a unique comfort as well…in a way that leads to peace.

  9. huxley says, “I was once in an online discussion of poems about friendship and was surprised how few poems fit that bill.”

    I hope you and the other contributors didn’t leave out Tennyson’s “In Memoriam A.H.H.,” which he wrote after the death of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died in 1833 at the age of 22– apparently of a cerebral hemorrhage. The two young men had met and become friends at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Hallam was engaged to Tennyson’s sister Emilia.

    Tennyson was devastated by his friend’s death, and worked on “In Memoriam” from 1833 until he published the lengthy poem in 1850. One of its best-known quatrains is as follows:

    I hold it true, whate’er befall;
    I feel it when I sorrow most;
    ‘Tis better to have loved and lost
    Than never to have loved at all.

    Most people think the lines refer to the loss of a romantic partner, and are surprised to find out that they are a testimony to a deep friendship.

  12. Thanks for the music, Neo. You’ve almost inspired me to write again. But I can’t cry yet.

  13. One of my favorite poems about friendship is Robert Frost’s “Iris By Night”:

    One misty evening, one another’s guide,
    We two were groping down a Malvern side
    The last wet fields and dripping hedges home.
    There came a moment of confusing lights,
    Such as according to belief in Rome
    Were seen of old at Memphis on the heights
    Before the fragments of a former sun
    Could concentrate anew and rise as one.
    Light was a paste of pigment in our eyes.
    And then there was a moon and then a scene
    So watery as to seem submarine;
    In which we two stood saturated, drowned.
    The clover-mingled rowan on the ground
    Had taken all the water it could as dew,
    And still the air was saturated too,
    Its airy pressure turned to water weight.
    Then a small rainbow like a trellis gate,
    A very small moon-made prismatic bow,
    Stood closely over us through which to go.
    And then we were vouchsafed a miracle
    That never yet to other two befell
    And I alone of us have lived to tell.
    A wonder! Bow and rainbow as it bent,
    Instead of moving with us as we went
    (To keep the pots of gold from being found),
    It lifted from its dewy pediment
    Its two mote-swimming many-colored ends
    And gathered them together in a ring.
    And we stood in it softly circled round
    From all division time or foe can bring
    In a relation of elected friends.

    Written in memory of Frost’s friend Edward Thomas, who was killed in action at the Battle of Arras in 1917.

  14. I have never been a particular follower of popular music, but the first time I heard “Bridge Over Troubled Water” (and I can remember exactly where and when that was) I said that’s going to be a big hit.

  15. My mom and dad met when they were 13 and 16 at a carnival in 1951, She lived in Elwood, IL; he lived in Joliet (yes, just like the Blues Brothers!).
    They were engaged at 16 and 19. They married at 18 and 21.
    When my dad died in 2003, my mom had “BOTW” played by the organist/pianist at his funeral.

  18. Re: Tennyson, ” “In Memoriam A.H.H.”, “Better to have loved and lost…”

    PA+Cat:

    I sure thought those lines were about a romantic partner!

    These days I prefer a more detailed cost/benefit/risk analysis. 🙂

  19. David Foster:

    I thought of “Old Friends,” but I decided not to include it. It doesn’t actually seem to me about friendship, but rather about old age and decline and lack of communication.

  20. Here’s an old Judy Collins song specifically about a friend named Judith and finally about all her friends:
    __________________________________

    Open the door and come on in
    I’m so glad to see you my friends
    You’re all like a rainbows comin’ around the bend
    And when I see you smilin’
    Well, it sets my heart free
    I’d like to be as good a friend to you
    as you are to me

    –Judy Collins, “Song for Judith (Open the Door)”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq_6BNhn_Gs
    __________________________________

    I found it a touching song. One year I hand-painted some Christmas cards for a few special friends using the singular form of the refrain.

  21. Here’s a Yeats poem which has stuck with me from the moment I read it in my early 20s. It’s more about comforting a friend than about friendship itself. It’s fierce comfort from a loyal friend.

    Reading it now I hear echoes from Shakespeare’s sonnet, “When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men’s Eyes” — one of the ultimate poems written in English by my estimation, though that resolves as a love poem.
    __________________________

    To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing

    Now all the truth is out,
    Be secret and take defeat
    From any brazen throat,
    For how can you compete,
    Being honor bred, with one
    Who were it proved he lies
    Were neither shamed in his own
    Nor in his neighbors’ eyes;
    Bred to a harder thing
    Than Triumph, turn away
    And like a laughing string
    Whereon mad fingers play
    Amid a place of stone,
    Be secret and exult,
    Because of all things known
    That is most difficult.

    –William Butler Yeats
    __________________________

    How about a specific greeting card rack dedicated “To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing”?

  22. I like the song: “Breathe”, aka “Breathe (2am)”, by Anna Nalick.

    In the song, Anna tells us about some of her friends hurts aka emotional tight-spots, and how she helps her friends through those tight spots.

    I’m always feel touched by the song’s chorus:

    “And breathe, just breathe
    Oh, breathe, just breathe” .

    Here are the lyrics to the song:

    Two am, and she calls me ’cause I’m still awake
    Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?
    I don’t love him, winter just wasn’t my season

    Yeah, we walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes
    Like they have any right at all to criticize
    Hypocrites, you’re all here for the very same reason

    ‘Cause you can’t jump the track, we’re like cars on a cable
    And life’s like an hourglass glued to the table
    No one can find the rewind button, girl
    So cradle your head in your hands

    And breathe, just breathe
    Oh, breathe, just breathe

    May he turn twenty-one on the base at Fort Bliss
    Just today he sat down to the flask in his fist
    Ain’t been sober since maybe October of last year
    Here in town you can tell he’s been down for a while
    But, my God, it’s so beautiful when the boy smiles
    Want to hold him, maybe I’ll just sing about it

    ‘Cause you can’t jump the track, we’re like cars on a cable
    And life’s like an hourglass glued to the table
    No one can find the rewind button, boys
    So cradle your head in your hands

    And breathe, just breathe
    Oh, breathe, just breathe

    There’s a light at each end of this tunnel, you shout
    ‘Cause you’re just as far in as you’ll ever be out
    And these mistakes you’ve made, you’ll just make them again

    If you only try turning around

    Two am, and I’m still awake, writing a song
    If I get it all down on paper, it’s no longer
    Inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to
    And I feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd
    ‘Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
    And I know that you’ll use them, however you want to

    But you can’t jump the track, we’re like cars on a cable
    And life’s like an hourglass glued to the table
    No one can find the rewind button now
    Yeah, sing it if you’ll understand

    And breathe, just breathe
    Oh, breathe, just breathe
    Oh, breathe, just breathe
    Oh, breathe, just breathe .

    (I think using this link- you can watch a video that plays this song):

    https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/7655591/Anna+Nalick/Breathe+(2+AM)

    (p.s. If the video in the link doesn’t work, you can find a video of the song on youtube.)

  29. I was a surgery resident on my GYN rotation when I heard “Bridge over..” I still remember the time and place.

  30. Stephen McIntyre
    @ClimateAudit
    ·
    22h
    Ukraine reported to have fired more than 300 missiles at the Kakhovka dam since summer 2022 and to have sniped at workers who attempted to repair damage caused by Ukraine

    Hmmm, I now have a dilemma. I can trust Steve McIntyre who is one of the smartest people I’ve ever read and an absolute stickler for fair analysis. Or I can reject this information because I have been assured by the all-knowing arbiter of truth, the Great OM, that he knows different.

    om, are the 300 missiles and sniping all a lie?

  31. stan:

    I have a suggestion for you, which is to trust no one to know what’s going on in Ukraine. The fog of war is very thick there.

    But why you would especially trust Steve McIntyre on the war in Ukraine is beyond me. He is a “Canadian mining exploration company director, a former minerals prospector and semi-retired mining consultant whose work has included statistical analysis. He is best known as the founder and editor of Climate Audit, a blog devoted to the analysis and discussion of climate data.”

    I would maybe trust him on information about mining – and I mean “mining” as in “minerals” and not explosives.

  33. stan (aka IAF):

    Here is an analysis of the probable destruction of the Denipro River dam by the Russians. Russians are controlling it, remember?

    How Russia Destroyed the Kakhovka Dam – Ryan McBeth

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z4rhBKTT5U

    Ryan is a software engineer ex-US Army NCO, who actually contacted other more knowledgeable engineers and geologists (yah). Seismic data doesn’t seem to indicate an explosion causing the failure, thus Russian ineptitude most likely. Why Russia can’t have or keep good things?

    Anyway, 300 missile strikes since Vlad did his frisks and capers into Ukraine? BFD, where is the assessment of where they hit and how big they were? You know using those eyes in the sky (satellites)? Did the Russians report that the missiles or attacks by the Ukrainians had damaged the sluices or sluiceways or the cranes that operate the sluices? Speak up stan (aka IAF).

    So the sniping by Ukraine made life for the Russians difficult or dangerous? Well that is a particularly sad thing for Vlad’s troops, but they seized the dam, blew up the northern bridge, and let the pool rise to 17 m (+4 m from the winter pool elevation IIRC) in the peak inflow period. What could result from typical Russian ineptitude?

    The Russians could have negotiated with a third party to allow a neutral body to operate the sluices? Inconceivable. It’s just water over the … Roosia wants, eh stan?

    I had posted an earlier reply to stan (aka IAF) from my smart phone, but it got lost in the interwebs.

  35. Considering the pools of possibility, there are some songs and few poems dealing with friendship.

    Perhaps this makes sense. Friendship is wonderful, but the bonds of romance and family make the world go round.

  37. @ huxley > “Friendship is wonderful, but the bonds of romance and family make the world go round.”

    True – and the best thing is when your friend and romantic partner are the same person!

  38. It had been quite a few years since BOTW had been on the top playlists. It was the first song my dear little girl performed to in an ice skating exhibit. She was 9 I think. I remember it well. I made her skating dress and covered the front with hadn’t embroidery. Her blonde curly pigtails flying out behind her as she set up for the first jump. She is still my best friend.

    Maybe 10 years later in 1981, I saw Garfunkel send that note out over that huge crowd. The most exciting moment came when he released that one note and did not know for sure how it was received, but instantly by some internal insight he knew he had nailed it–I loved that look of recognition on his face!
    I can’t find a video for you, but I know you know what I am talking about ! 🙂

  39. huxley–

    Romantic love is a fairly recent preoccupation in Western culture; for most of the West’s history since ancient Greece and Rome, friendship was considered a more important human bond. Aristotle devoted an entire book (Book VIII) in his Nicomachean Ethics to friendship, and Cicero wrote a treatise on friendship (De amicitia) dedicated to his friend Laelius in 44 BC. The Greeks considered sexual passion a form of madness because it involved loss of self-control, as the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides indicate. It wasn’t until the late Middle Ages that romantic love became legitimated as the basis of marriage; read Denis de Rougemont’s Love in the Western World if you can find a copy. De Rougemont was a French-speaking Swiss cultural theorist. There were plenty of songs and poems celebrating friendship in European literature up through the seventeenth century; the paucity of recent poems about friendship says more about the impoverishment of contemporary culture than about the worth of friendship in human life.

    Romantic love may make the world go round for you, but there are those of us who prefer friendship.

  40. PA+Cat:

    Oh, I consider friendship underrated and I’m not that keen on romance. Just because I notice something doesn’t mean I agree with it.

    You are correct that romantic love, as currently understood, is comparatively new. It’s good to be reminded of friendship’s place in older times.

    Nonetheless, I can’t think of a single book in the Bible devoted to friendship, but there is “The Song of Songs.”

    Then there’s Gene Hackman in “Heist”:
    ______________________________

    Delroy Lindo: Some say love [makes the world go round].

    Gene Hackman: They’re right too. Love makes the world go ’round… Love of Gold.

  41. “…devoted to friendship….”
    David and Jonathan, perhaps? (No, not a book, alas….)
    1 Samuel:
    18:1-4
    19:1-7
    20:1-42
    21:6-8
    2 Samuel:
    1:11-27
    9:1-13
    21:7-22

  42. Neo, regarding Steve McIntyre.

    Yes, you need to be skeptical of any information coming out of Ukraine.

    I can think of a reason McIntyre might have good insights about Ukraine though. Being in the mining industry he might have solid contacts in Ukraine, since mining is one of the larger industries in eastern Ukraine (though mostly coal).

  43. Brian E:

    That is sheer speculation. Not only do we not know whether he has such contacts, but we don’t know whom they might be or what their biases or motives might be.

  44. PA+Cat is historically quite correct. That is why marriages until recently were not based on “love”; marriages were arranged by the parents of the future brides for friendships, economic power and other practical reasons, and the “happy couple” learned how to tolerate one another because there was no other choice. We see how poorly love-based marriages have held up under no-fault divorce statutes! Odd, is it not, that durable marriages are made of two people who do tolerate one another!

  46. They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found no fault,
    They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt:
    They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod,
    On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the Wondrous Names of God.

    Figured I’d change the mood a bit: Kipling.

  47. neo and Brian E:

    Searching for “Natural resources of Ukraine” yields among other sites

    https://ukrainetrek.com/about-ukraine-nature/ukraine-natural-resources
    “Main Natural Resources of Ukraine” with categories such as:

    Coal
    Oil and natural gas
    Oil shale
    Peat
    Iron ore
    Manganese
    Copper
    Titanium
    Uranium
    Mercury
    Gold
    Graphite
    Potash salts
    Building materials
    Building stone
    Hydromineral resources (geothermal and mineralized groundwater)

    A resource’s value depends on cost of extraction, demand, i.e., economics.

    A mining engineer who specializes in coal or evaporites (salts) may not know much of value about iron ore, manganese, copper, uranium, titanium, or about civil engineering and hydropower dams, their operation, maintenance, or vulnerabilities to malign forces of man and nature.

    So being respected for his work on Climate Audit is nice but …. caveat emptor.

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