Something's gonna change

I was mentioning this week that CBC has been providing links on Facebook this month to "holiday videos" first shown on the web site in December. Here's another one, reuniting Commander Chris Hadfield with the "Wexford Gleeks" (a performing arts high school in the Greater Toronto area. The last time they sang together, Hadfield was in orbit on the International Space Station. Now, about ten months later, he joins them in the same studio to do a nicely arranged version of "Across the Universe".

This is a song that has always bewildered me. "Nothing's gonna change my world"? Really?

I suppose if you're thinking about nirvana, moving beyond need and desire, you might reach a changeless state, but I think that's miles beyond us. Across the universe, perhaps?

The other thought that returns to me is from Joseph Campbell's interviews with Bill Moyers in the late 1980's. Early in the discussions the subject of the Wheel of Fate came up and I seem to remember that Campbell's suggested solution to being at the mercy of the ups and downs of life was to move to the centre of the wheel.

The irony here is that Campbell was using this image as an illustration of the marriage vow "for better; for worse", and Lennon was, at the time, ending his marriage to his first wife Cynthia in favour of Yoko Ono. The opening lyrics Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup were supposed to be a reference to listening to, or, more likely, ignoring his wife's voice during arguments.

It took a bit of doing to locate this lovely video of Rufus Wainwright's version, which has been blocked to death by copyright types:


Some things never change. (But my world always is. Changing, that is.)