Re-listening to November Rain
Reflections on music, losing loved ones and healing
I used to be a Guns N’ Roses fan. I aspired to replicate Slash’s bends and arpeggios on the guitar. I screamed at the top of my lungs to reach Axl Rose’s high notes.
As school kids, we kinda’ had to pick a “favourite band” (of course not a “boy band”).
Mine was GNR.
It was difficult at the time to afford original CDs (most kids bought pirated ones). I convinced my parents to fork out 1,200 Taka to buy me an original double disc album consisting of some of GNR’s best live performances.
I treasured it like a priceless jewel.
The songs accompanied me through the good and the bad times of tumultuous teenage years.
Fast forward two decades and I no longer have a favourite band. I like a few songs from different bands but it doesn’t mean any one of them is my “favourite”.
It’s a childish thing to have a “favourite band”, mostly a result of peer pressure.
And why should I only listen to rock music? I can listen to anything, hell even boy bands!
Or not listen to music at all.
Which is pretty much where I stand as I grow older.
Overburdened with responsibilities, starved of time, running through life like a hamster on a wheel.
I have no time for music.
Neither does music have the same emotional appeal to me as it used to.
And GNR? I wonder how I could listen to the same old songs on repeat. Over and over again.
For my family, the year started with a heartbreaking news. My father-in-law passed away.
We took the next available flight from Melbourne to Jakarta. But it was too late. He was gone. He never got to meet our son, his first grandchild.
The regret will remain with us forever.
The trip was full of twists and turns (you know, as family matters always are). I found out things about my father-in-law I had never known.
He turned out to be a more mysterious figure than I had thought. Sadly, he was also misunderstood. There were certain things he did, or did not do, that I couldn’t understand why.
I had questions for him I couldn’t ask. I didn’t speak his language and he didn’t speak mine.
But finally, I got a glimpse of who he was from other family members. He had kept certain things to himself. He would rather be misunderstood than cause resentment and ruin relationships.
Now, he’s no longer with us. We are left with a fair bit of regret that would keep eating away at us from the inside like a parasite.
Regret for words not said and things not done.
I read a quote once (attributed by Google to Harriet Beecher Stowe, author and abolitionist) which has stuck with me ever since:
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
My father-in-law’s passing has also provided us an occasion to reflect on resentment towards those we love, especially when we feel like they’ve harmed us. Is it really worth harbouring a grudge? Perhaps, they had a story that we didn’t know of. Perhaps, they acted the way they did because they were just as broken as we are.
I know it’s hard to keep an open heart
When even friends seem out to harm you
The familiar lines from November Rain drifted out of a speaker at a shopping mall and greeted me like a long-lost friend.
My wife took my son to Timezone. He wanted to play some games before our trip back home the following day.
I was waiting outside the shopping centre, in a shaded area sheltering from the rain.
Listening to November Rain.
It was an acoustic version. I wondered whether it was GNR Unplugged but it didn’t exactly sound like them. It was probably a cover.
I asked Siri what song it was, and she accurately returned the artist as Dimas Senopati, an Indonesian singer.
He has a raspy voice similar to Axl Rose’s but does not pitch it quite as high. The acoustic guitar captures the emotions of Slash’s original solo but renders it more soothing. The powerful orchestral outro of the original is simplified into vocals, acoustic guitar and piano adding a sombreness to it different to the epic, dramatic effect of the original.
It was an old song heard in a different way, at a different place, in a dramatically different phase of my life.
The themes of restrained love, healing a broken heart, needing to be all alone, yet needing someone took on a totally different meaning.
I was falling in love with the song all over again. I “saw” it in a different light.
In the halo cast by the streetlight, the rain appeared like shining threads falling from the sky before disappearing into the darkness of the night.
An old lady sat on a bench alone, coughing away. Out of breath. The frailty of her age apparent in every wrinkle on her face, and every laboured breath she took.
I wondered how much life she had left in her. Amid the hustle and bustle of people going in and out of the mall, she cut a lonely figure on a lonely bench.
In her fragility and loneliness, a story unfolded. The story of those among our loved ones whose time in this world is nearing the end. Their youth was like the drops of rain in the streetlight — it shined for a moment, just for a moment. Now loneliness has engulfed most of them like a dark, rainy night.
Soon enough it will be our turn to sit on that lonely bench reflecting on how the years have gone past so fast. How our kids, once so close, have gone out into the world and settled in distant lands.
At that time we would need empathy from them, not judgement for our shortcomings.
Our parents, our elders, might have done some things right and some things wrong in life. But have we taken the time to know about their stories. Is it really the right time to hold them to account? Will it heal us?
If we let go and keep them company, that will surely heal them. Perhaps, that will heal us too.
But if you could heal a broken heart
Wouldn’t time be out to charm you?
After we went back to our hotel, I searched for Dimas Senopati’s cover of November Rain.
I played it once. I played it twice.
Once again, after many years, I was listening to this song on repeat. Over and over again.
Perhaps, that’s what I needed. To listen to a familiar song, that had lost its charm, from a new voice. To look at familiar people, for whom the love had faded, in a new light.
