Lyrics To A Song You Haven't Heard But Should

Well I live in America
And here is how it lies
Underneath my pillow
Are plans that God passed by
She said it’d be all right
If I had to walk away
The greatest view is from the edge
It’s always been that way

And I’m becoming, beautiful
So much harder than I thought
It only feels like losing now
I guess I’ll understand someday.

She opens up her pain
Becomes serene
If I could slip this vanity
That’s how I’d like to be.
Cause I’m staring at myself
As I’m Staring at the earth
It seems so unfamiliar
The way that things once were

And I’m becoming, beautiful
So much harder than I thought
It only feels like losing now
I guess I’ll understand someday.

If I could be alone
If I could be with you
I would stop a point and blame
Even though it’s true
And even though I said it,
It feels like just like losing anyway
And I sometimes half regretted it,
But I never ran away

Cause I’m becoming, beautiful
So much harder than I thought
It only feels like losing now
I guess I’ll understand someday.

But if you’re becoming beautiful,
It’s gonna be so much harder than you know
Then if you feel like you’re losing now,
Then I guess I’ll understand someday
I’m told I’ll understand someday
She’ll understand someday.
I guess I’ll understand someday.

--"The America Song" by Stephen Kellogg in South of Stephen

I just spent $55 buying everything he's ever recorded. I have a feeling it's the best investment I've made in... at least the last four hours. There's something great about songwriters who sing and play their own songs. I think their gift is putting the intangible feelings we have into verse. It can be like poetry on steroids: You have the great words, sure, but then you also have the mode of expression molding the words as they're being said. Do you read 'I guess I'll understand someday.' as hopeful, resigned, sarcastic, or what? Just the text and you're up for a lengthy discussion of the real meaning of the words. But, if the writer sings them in such a way, then you get a song that matches an exact emotion. It's something that you can bring up at any time or place in the future when that same emotion emerges from your heart again. If you don't understand it now, I guess you'll understand someday.


I think people feel most alive when they're full of pathos. Pathos doesn't have a positive or negative connotation; it just is intense. It allows for both grief and joy. We shouldn't expect one and not the other in life. And if we see intense feelings as two sides of the same coin, it gives hope to the sorrowful and temperance to the joyful. Paradox and change: If you see pathos as a coin, then you see how both sorrow and joy can exist and yet feel so opposite (and if it's a coin, then i guess you have some change. ha. ha...ahhhh, puns.) I believe that pathos gives us a glimpse of true reality.

Even in our darkest hours we have hope for a better day ahead.
Even in our happiest moments we realize that there's something even greater in store: the day when we have joy everlasting.
For me, it heightens the highs and dampens the lows. And that to me, is beautiful. You essentially change an oscillation around a base point of average (high, low, high, low, etc.=zero) to an increasingly above average point (high, low, higher, not as low, even higher, etc.=0,1,2,3...). Maybe?

Yes one day, no the next. Joy, sorrow, then what?