I’m generally a positive person. By which I mean: I try to focus my energy on the areas where I can do good, and recognize things over which I have no influence or control.

Easy to say, hard to do.

Sometimes it’s difficult to let go of the things you’re powerless to control. Or sometimes, you trick yourself into thinking that if you aim your biggest, loudest anger at those things you might actually change them. Eventually you realize – tired and deflated – that you can’t.

Living legend Mavis Staples has recently released the perfect song for such difficult moments.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. Staples’ voice, usually powerful and sturdy and infused with years of civil rights activism, is closer to a tired whisper here.

2. The lyrics make it hard to tell whether her final assessment of the world is more sad or more beautiful. This is especially true in the last verse, where the words could easily be read as cynical or hopeful: “Sometimes days go speeding past / Sometimes this one seems like the last.”

3. Structurally, it feels like a song that is deliberately trying to avoid building momentum: no verse or chorus is sung louder than the previous one, no instrumentation is added or taken away, there’s no bridge, no change to the chord structure, no big dynamic shifts or emotional outpouring. It’s a simple yet powerful statement of fact: this world is sad. This world is beautiful. And you live in it.

Recommended listening activity:

Taking life as it comes.

Buy it here.

The post Week 804: “Sad and Beautiful World” by Mavis Staples appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.