"The Long and Winding Road"

Like “Let the Sun Shine In,” “The Long and Winding Road” has been with me for a long time, but unlike Hair, it did not escape and hide from me for years. This is not a song I listened to constantly, but every time I hear it, I come close to tears. I find this song very aesthetic. It is soft and relaxing, the singer accompanied only by a couple instruments. The lyrics are also so moving:

The wild and windy night
That the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears
Crying for the day.
Why leave me standing here?
Let me know the way

The winding road can be compared to many things, but for me it represents my life. What stage, you may ask? Well, I think all stages. I am a huge Beatles fan and could easily have picked any of their songs, but this one touches me in a way that I almost find indescribable. I have had a lot of dark days in my life, days where Hair’s sunshine could not even brighten them. This is a song that I can play and cry to and feel ok doing it. But I don’t cry because the song is sad; I cry because it has so much hope. The singer is longing to “know the way.” Is that not what we are all doing? We want to know where to go, and in a world that is full of seven billion winding roads intertwining with one another, it can be hard to follow your own path.

“The Long and Winding Road” is a later song of the Beatles, when John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s hair was long and disheveled. In the musical Hair, long locks symbolize rebellion, a deviation from the social norm. It’s a very anthropological musical, bursting with life and love, questions about the meaning of existence and calls for change. Both these artists and these songs have a plea in them, a plea for strength and direction, hope in a place where it’s so easy to get lost.