Hanoi
Echoes of Generations: Embracing Love Amidst Shadows
Lyrics
With you everything in life was peaceful
Expressing a sense of tranquility and harmony in life when together.
My anxiousness, my heartache, and my blues
Acknowledging the relief from anxiety, heartache, and blues in the relationship.
You took me as I was and didn’t ask too much
Appreciating acceptance without excessive demands.
Just at the door that I took off my shoes
Symbolizing a comfortable and intimate space by the act of taking off shoes.
When autumn came, you put your arms around me
Describing a comforting embrace during the autumn season.
The branches they hung low over the street
Depicting branches hanging low as a visual element of the surroundings.
And the shadows that they made, had also given shade
Highlighting the shadows providing shade and a connection to war stories.
To the soldiers of our fathers’ war stories
Referencing the impact of war on previous generations.
I keep you with me
Repeated emphasis on keeping the person in memory or spirit.
I keep you with me
-I keep you with me
-I keep you with me
-We both know that I’m too young to remember
Acknowledging a lack of personal memory due to youth.
But for you the wounds ran deep, down to the bone
Recognizing deep emotional wounds endured by the other person.
You’ve ached and you have cried, for the mothers who have died
Expressing pain and sorrow for mothers who lost their lives.
And the generation of children left alone
Addressing the aftermath of war and children left without parents.
I was neither wiser much less older
Admitting a lack of wisdom or age but being accepted as family.
But you took me in a fed me as your own
Recalling being taken in and treated as an equal.
As equals and with love, without a word on God above
Emphasizing equality and love without religious imposition.
Or the many things I should already have known
Acknowledging ignorance and lack of knowledge that should have been known.
I keep you with me
Reiteration of keeping the person's memory alive.
I keep you with me
-I keep you with me
-I keep you with me
-It wasn’t long til your home became our home
Transitioning to the integration of homes and shared life.
But it was longer before I began to see
Realization of an underlying issue and delayed awareness.
There was something that was wrong, and you had you known it all along
Suggesting an awareness of a personal flaw depicted as a monster.
That the monster, in those stories, it was me
Connecting personal shortcomings to the monstrous elements in stories.
I keep you with me
Repetition of the commitment to keeping the person's memory despite personal flaws.
I keep you with me
-I keep you with me
-I keep you with me
-I keep you with me
-I keep you with me
-I keep you with me
-I keep you with me
Final affirmation of preserving the person's memory.
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