If Everyone Cared

I'm going to start on my search for meaning in song lyrics. I'll start with If Everyone Cared by Nickelback. Before I get started, here's the lyrics:

From underneath the trees, we watch the sky
Confusing stars for satellites
I never dreamed that you'd be mine
But here we are, we're here tonight


Singing Amen, I, I'm alive
Singing Amen, I, I'm alive


If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we'd see the day when nobody died


And I'm singing


Amen I, Amen I, I'm alive
Amen I, Amen I, Amen I, I'm alive


And in the air the fireflies
Our only light in paradise
We'll show the world they were wrong
And teach them all to sing along


Singing Amen, I, I'm alive
Singing Amen, I, I'm alive
(I'm alive)

If everyone cared and nobody cried

If everyone loved and nobody lied

If everyone shared and swallowed their pride

Then we'd see the day when nobody died

And as we lie beneath the stars
We realize how small we are
If they could love like you and me
Imagine what the world could be


If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we'd see the day when nobody died
When nobody died...


We'd see the day, we'd see the day
When nobody died
We'd see the day, we'd see the day
When nobody died
We'd see the day when nobody died

So, my thoughts? Well, I really like the way they did the music video too, for one thing. I've posted it below the post, so you can watch it when I'm done musing. But they intersperse your typical music-video-shots of the band with video, words, and pictures of different lesser-known civil activists. It works really well, I personally just wish that there wasn't so much dead space at the end of the video. But mebbe that's just me being picky.

Anyway, I'm especially gonna focus on the refrain. If everyone cared, and nobody cried, if everyone loved and nobody lied, if everyone shared and swallowed their pride, would we see the day when nobody died? Ladies and gents, welcome to the Garden of Eden. If this were to truly be within our world, Christ's message would have truly become the byword of the world.

But is this even possible? Can we attain this kind of perfection?

But in the end the fireflies are only light in Paradise. Nope, those aren't the actual lyrics, but it's what I'd first thought they were when I listened. There is still truth within those words, though. Remember chasing fireflies as a kid? I know I did. It was one of my favorite things to do. Even now, on summer nights when I get home from work or spending time at a friend's house or Phinwe's, I look at the yard and will sit for a bit, just watching the fireflies. It looks like someone dumped a huge thing of gold glitter on the grass. They don't have much light. But in Paradise (another term for Heaven), the light from those little fireflies would be enough to do anything - read, dance, walk...those little bugs would be enough. But here, in our imperfect world, we cannot necessarily light up great halls and get our names into history books like Martin Luther King Jr.

So what's the point?

We should be like fireflies.

We should light up our little corner of the world. Every one of us has a light to shine, no matter how large or small it is. If we put a basket over it or try to dim it, the only ones we're hurting are ourselves.

And as we lie beneath the stars, we realize how small we are; if they could love like you and me, imagine what our world could be.

We're not very big. In the grand scheme of things, we're a little dot running amongst other little dots. But we can make a difference. If we consciously love whom we meet, we might see the world

Where everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
We'd see the day...

When nobody died. 

"His lord said to him: 'Well done, good and faithful servant...enter thou into the joy of thy lord.'" Mt 25:23 (Douay-Rheims)








-enna