My Gen X Playlist: I Don’t Want to Wait – Paula Cole

I could say work, but where’s the fun in that. And am I really? I don’t have a PhD in anything, so I can’t lean on my education. Nobody is knocking on my door to pick my brain on any complicated issue that needs to be solved. So, no. I’m not an authority on any meaningful topic.

It goes without saying I am an authority on my family. It’s not a topic others need to tap into, it’s not in high demand. But it is meaningful to me. This isn’t uncommon or considered a super power. Most are experts on their families. I do like how each family has their own unique set of stories, each with a different blend of the good, the bad and the ugly. Hopefully more of the former and only a pinch of the latter. In the end, your family is your family. You just have to embrace them.

Paula Cole released I Don’t Want to Wait in 1996. Association is a funny thing. Mentally, I’ve tied this song with the TV show Dawson’s Creek, even though that rarely made my watch list. In my mind, one lends itself to the other. I’ve always liked this song, especially how her tone shifts up and down. Apparently, this song was inspired by memories of her family growing up.

 “It’s a very personal song that’s looking at my grandparents, specifically my grandfather, Everett, who fought in World War II, his unhappy marriage to my grandmother – the firecracker, Helen – their influence on my father and then that influence on me. 

When you grow up with your grandparents you can really see the generations and the energy of the parenting. I was looking at it and thinking, ‘I don’t want to make some of these mistakes. I really hope I don’t.’ Wanting to take that Atlas globe off of my shoulders that felt like each female generation was passing, like you have to just stay married, you can’t be happy, you can’t have a career. I just wanted to shrug it off and I wanted happiness for my life, my generation.

Of course, I go about making all kinds of different mistakes in reaction to that and ironically I come back to my hometown and full circle of living by my parents now, with my daughter. So, that song follows me. It’s a song from my life. I think about my family in it, I think about generations, the way they’ve formed my dad and me, but really I wrote it for my grandfather and I feel like his spirit is still in that song. The song has wings – the spirit is in that song.”

– Songfacts

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…that song follows me. It’s a song from my life.

I like this thought. I can think of a number of things that follow me. They are not all wrapped in a song, but there is that something that lingers in the background. Unsurprisingly, many can be tied back to family. And maybe that’s what Cole is referring to, the spirit of our families always present among us, with shades of the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s not an easy recipe, mind you. Ingredients leapfrogging each other vying for pole position, changing the mix and at times, screwing up the flavor. It’s all we got, though. All we can do is go with the flow. Family is family.

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For a complete playlist, please click here.

For the Spotify playlist, please click here.

So open up your morning light,
And say a little prayer for right
You know that if we are to stay alive
Then see the peace in every eye...

doo doo doo doo do doo do
do do doo doo doo doo dooo doo ooh

She had two babies, one was six months, one was three
In the war of '44...
Every telephone ring, every heartbeat stinging
When she thought it was God calling her
Oh, would her son grow to know his father?

[CHORUS:]
I don't want to wait for our lives to be over,
I want to know right now, what will it be?
I don't want to wait for our lives to be over,
Will it be yes or will it be...sorry?

doo doo oooh doo ooh do do ooh

He showed up all wet on the rainy front step
Wearing shrapnel in his skin
And the war he saw lives inside him still,
It's so hard to be gentle and warm
The years pass by and now he has granddaughters

[CHORUS]

You look at me from across the room
You're wearing your anguish again
Believe me I know the feeling
It sucks you into the jaws of anger(oooooooh)
So breathe a little more deeply my love
All we have is this very moment
And I don't want to do what his father,
And his father, and his father did,
I want to be here now
So open up your morning light,
And say a little prayer for right
You know that if we are to stay alive,
And see the peace in every eye...

[CHORUS x2]

doo doo doo dooo oooh do dooo doo
doo doo doo dooo do doooo oooh
doo doo doo do dooo do do

So open up your morning light,
And say a little prayer for right
You know that if we are to stay alive
Then see the love in every eye...