Another Day

[etherial]

I like having my entire music collection on shuffle. It's full of random things that stir up random memories. Some time ago, I was listening to "Another Day" with tpau. We both immediately agreed that it was the best song in Rent, but we didn't have a chance to discuss what it meant - just to know that we disagreed on what one should take away from the song. So I ask you, gentle reader, what does this song mean? Lyrics and my thoughts behind the cut.

---

Who do you think you are?
Barging in on me and my guitar
Little girl - Hey
The door is that way
You better go you know
The fire's out anyway

Take your powder - Take your candle
Your sweet whisper
I just can't handle

Well take your hair in the moonlight
Your brown eyes - Goodbye, Goodnight

I should tell you, I should tell you
I should tell you, I should - NO!!

Another time - Another place
Our temperature would climb
There'd be a long embrace
We'd do another dance
It'd be another play
Looking for romance?
Come back another day


Mimi:
The heart may freeze or it can burn
The pain will ease if I can learn

There is no future
There is no past
I live this moment
As my last

There's only us
There's only this
Forget regret
Or life is yours to miss
No other road
No other way
No day but today

Roger:
Excuse me if I'm off track
But if you're so wise
Then tell me - Why do you need
Smack?

Take your needle
Take your fancy prayer
And don't forget
Get the moonlight out of your hair
Long ago - You might've lit up my heart
But the fire's dead - Ain't never ever
Gonna start

Another time - Another place
The words would only rhyme
We'd be in outer space
It'd be another song
We'd sing another way
You wanna prove me wrong?
Come back another day
Another day

Mimi:
There's only yes
Only Tonight
We must let go
To know what's right
No other course
No other way
No day but today

Mimi / Roger:

I can't control / Control your temper
My destiny / She doesn't see
I trust my soul / Who says that there's a soul
Is just - To be / Just let me be

Mimi:
There's only now
There's only here
Give in to love
Or live in fear
No other path
No other way
No day but today

---

Well, the lj-cut has my opinion in a nutshell. Mimi and Roger clearly have the hots for each other but Roger is too busy feeling sorry for himself and judging Mimi to do anything about it. He knows exactly where she is in her life, but is trying too hard to stay mired in his own regrets to save her from the misery he knows she's in. The point of the song - the point of the show - is to maintain focus on the present (and, by extension, the future). To dwell on the past is to waste life entirely. Roger's just too much of a schmuck to listen to good advice when he hears it.

Comments

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

I think the statement "forget regret or life is yours to miss" can be taken two ways (leaving the rest of the song and context aside).

One - Don't spend your life dwelling on past regrets, or you'll waste it being blind to the new opportunities that come along (an outcome built to bring even more regrets).

Two - Live in the now. If you spend every moment worrying that you'll someday regret doing this or doing that, you'll never do anything (and then you'll get to regret the things you didn't do instead).

Obviously either of these need to be tempered with... something. Learning from past mistakes and regrets is how we grow, and keeping an eye to the future is in some ways necessary for self-preservation (for being around to have a future, among other things).

Whichever side you spin it from though, to me the essential message is live for the present, not yesterday or tomorrow.

[stillking.livejournal.com]

the essential message is live for the present, not yesterday or tomorrow

yes. _rent_ (like _la boheme_) is all about burning bright and brilliant, like a brief roman candle (and maybe finding some happiness along the way); the somewhat-contrived sidebar of several characters being afflicted with a wasting illness (a.i.d.s. in 1996, vice tuberculosis in 1896) merely serves as a heavyhanded reinforcement of said message.

i still very much enjoy the show, though its central message was perhaps more deep, stirring and meaningful to me at age 23 than it is at 33.

-- sven

[stillking.livejournal.com]

(and i thought (still think) 'one song glory' was/is better.)

-- sven

[elenuial.livejournal.com]

the somewhat-contrived sidebar of several characters being afflicted with a wasting illness

I wouldn't say it was contrived at all. In New York, just out of the eighties, a lot of people who ran in the same circles similar to the one portrayed were in some stage of AIDS. In the gay community, it's still known as "the Plague."