By THE ENTHUSIAST
And We Thought The Dark Would Never End
You have probably not heard this song before. But if you listen to it today – New Year’s Eve, 2020 – you will cry. You will. The Enthusiast believes that – knows that – with such certainty that if you finish listening to this song without weeping, The Enthusiast will buy you a drink whenever we’re next able to gather together at The Grill. It’s true. The Enthusiast will.
Verses One and Two
"What A Year For A New Year" was released almost twenty years ago, but it sounds for all the world as though singer and songwriter Dan Wilson had access to a time machine set for 2020. The Enthusiast will let the lyrics speak for themselves. Here’s how the song opens:
What a year for a new year
We need it like we needed life, I guess
Last one left us lying in a mess
What a year for a new year
What a night for a sunrise
And we thought the dark would never end
Reaching out to try and find a friend
What a night for a sunrise, a sunrise
Verse Three
If those lyrics don’t sum up the past ten months, The Enthusiast doesn’t know what does. But now a pinpoint of light shines out:
What a day for a new day
And our star shines like a miracle
And our world is almost beautiful again
What a day for a new day, a new day, a new day
What a year for a new year
Verses Four And Five
And then, at last, we glimpse the future:
Soon we’ll be lying in our beds
And new dreams will fill our heads
And the old ones will be ended
Hope we’ll forget about this place
Let it go without a trace
Wipe the teardrops from our faces
What a year for a new year
Here’s To The New Dreams That Will Soon Fill Our Heads
The Enthusiast wept as he wrote this closing column. But not in sadness. In hope. In faith. In anticipation. What a day for a new day. What a year for a new year.
Number thirty-one, the final entry in a series.
New Year's Eve 2020
The Enthusiast (offbroadway@outlook.com) is the pen name of critic Michael Collins. He reports back only on what’s good, never what’s bad. He is currently imbued with the holiday spirit.