Time Fades Away

It will surprise no one that this post will use a Neil Young song as its vehicle.  Time Fades Away is a 1973 album recorded during the tour immediately succeeding the successful release of Harvest.  Time Fades Away serves as the title track of the first album in the famed Ditch Trilogy, a series of three albums with a grim shadow cast upon them due to the loss of a band member (more on that here).  The Trilogy contains some of my favorite Neil tunes.  The lyrics of the title song aren't as grim as others in this period of Neil.  You can hear a bit of desperation in his voice, but unlike the normal Ditch Trilogy feeling, this song really makes you want to stomp and dance a bit.  

The chorus of this song kept with me:

 

Son, don't be home too late.
Try to get back by eight
Son, don't wait
till the break of day
'Cause you know
how time fades away.
Time fades away
You know how time fades away.

I think the song is recognizing how easy it is to lose track of time when you’re having fun.  Turning 34 has only proved this out for me in real life.  As a 34 year-old celebrating every day of his Puckett Year, I can’t believe I’ve gotten this old, this fast.  And as I look back, all the fun of the last 16 years or so certainly has been a factor in time moving at record speed.

I do not match the picture “22-year-old Matt” might have dreamed up for himself.   Not much has changed.  Preferences, maybe.  But at my core is the same guy: deeply caring, sometimes a bit bombastic, restless.  I think the people we engage with remain the same at their core, too.  As time fades, it’s nice to know that we, ourselves, do not fade (or at least we diminish at a much slower pace).  As a direct result, our relationships stay true for a long time as well.  I think that’s why we’re all here writing. 

I did not know Kirby Puckett.  I don’t know whether he stayed the same person over the years his star rose, and subsequently fell.  Unlike most of us, though, Kirby has a handful of amazing moments that captured us as young people.  And most likely, one of the first memories we have comes from Game 6 of the 1991 World Series.  I don’t know that any of us will have a moment so huge that millions of people remember us for it, whether we ever meet them or not.  So we have to travel a different path.  The content of our character and the connections we make that will leave an impression on others, day by day.  People will remember us based on hundreds of interactions, instead of one fantastic night.  Let's keep that in mind during our Puckett Year, and make every moment count.