Love in the New Millennium 6: Summer Solstice Stardust Reveries

Image Source: Glogster.

Welcome Summer!  Today marks the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere.  With it, a buzzing haze descends amid dreamy reminiscences.  Hoagy Carmichael's Stardust is one of the greatest songs ever written when it comes to capturing the way love leaves an indelible memory. Carmichael wrote it in Bloomington, Indiana in 1927. The lyrics were added in 1929 by Mitchell Parish.

Stardust (Carmichael/Parish 1927-1929)

And now the purple dusk of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart
High up in the sky the little stars climb
Always reminding me that we're apart

You wandered down the lane and far away
Leaving me a song that would not die
Love is now the stardust of yesterday
The music of the years gone by

Sometimes I wonder why I spend
The lonely nights dreaming of a song
The melody haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you

When our love was new
And each kiss an inspiration
But that was long ago
And now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song

And beside a garden wall
When stars are bright
You were in my arms
Nightingale tells it's fairy tale
Of paradise where roses grew

Though I dream in vain
In my heart it always will remain
My stardust melody
The memory of love's refrain

When our love was new
And each kiss an inspiration
Oh, but that was long ago
And now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song

Beside a garden wall
When stars are bright
You were in my arms
The nightingale tell its fairy tale
Of paradise where roses grew

Though I dream in vain
In my heart it will remain
My stardust melody
The memory of love's refrain

The song always makes me think of a 1920s-Fitzgerald age immortalized in The Great Gatsby and its famous line regarding Gatsby watching the green light at the end of Daisy's dock:

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther … And one fine morning -

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Star-crossed love bends our understanding of time, mixing intense memories with hope - it's a state of mind that clings to past and future.  There's a nice post at The Great Jay Gatsby about the green light in that novel (that post is the source of the image below).  Below the jump, a famous rendition of Stardust by Nat King Cole.

Video Source: Youtube.

See all my posts on Love in the New Millennium.


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