The Moment: The River and Dreams

This one is for all the Dreamers!!!

You know a dream is like a river

Ever changin' as it flows

And a dreamer's just a vessel

That must follow where it goes

Trying to learn from what's behind you

And never knowing what's in store

Makes each day a constant battle

Just to stay between the shores...and

I will sail my vessel

'Til the river runs dry

Like a bird upon the wind

These waters are my sky

I'll never reach my destination

If I never try

So I will sail my vessel

'Til the river runs dry

Too many times we stand aside

And let the waters slip away

'Til what we put off 'til tomorrow

Has now become today

So don't you sit upon the shoreline

And say you're satisfied

Choose to chance the rapids

And dare to dance the tide...yes

I will sail my vessel

'Til the river runs dry

Like a bird upon the wind

These waters are my sky

I'll never reach my destination

If I never try

So I will sail my vessel

'Til the river runs dry

There's bound to be rough waters

And I know I'll take some falls

But with the good Lord as my captain

I can make it through them all...yes

I will sail my vessel

'Til the river runs dry

Like a bird upon the wind

These waters are my sky

I'll never reach my destination

If I never try

So I will sail my vessel

'Til the river runs dry

Yes, I will sail my vessel

'Til the river runs dry

Too bad my PC had to reinstall its OS. I lost all the play counts of my song collection therefore. I'm sure this one had a good many play times; and yes it should. Garth Brooks who is a country fellow with a good deep cow boy voice (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6TLqpe1y4s) is giving a wonderful musical beat to it. Specially the opening music.

No words to describe the meaning of the song. It's high above my vocabulary. The author is saying about dreams and how you should lead them. He starts everything by defining the terms first; Dream equal to River, and Dreamer equal to Vessel. All through the song he briefing this metaphor in poetic way. Chase your dreams and never give up.

I get to know this song was taken as a funeral song in western countries counties. Don't know how it can relates to the death. May be it plays for the people who had sail their vessels to a destination before river was dried out. Or maybe for the people who's in sailing and stepped into rough waters. Or for people who was dare to danced in the tide. Bluesheets idea is that "This poem reminds us that life is shorter than we think; and if we just stand on the shore watching the river go by, then life will be gone before we have a chance to live it." Maybe this is how it relates.

This song is reminding me several things in art and entertainment industry. A movie, a Sinhala song and a Sinhala poem. It's fun to relate things with one another by creating links.

The movie: The Bucket List

The song: Galanna Galanna by Indika Upamali

The poem: The last verse of Vassanaya by Rathna Sri Wijesinghe

The Bucket List

It was a story about two old men who received their death notices. One is a billionaire and other one is just an ordinary senior citizen. Yep! he is Morgan Freeman. One has no care about life, and spent the day as he want to the maximum. Other one was a family man and gave his life to it. They were complete strangers who were met at the same hospital room, cancer patients.

They were dislike each other at the first instance. A billionaire and a commoner! In the same hospital room! But thereafter a bond was created between them thanks to a bucket list. The commoner had a desire to complete a list of things that he would never guessed that he could done; but didn't had any money to spent on them in his lifetime. The billionaire had a desire to do crazy things and go for the adventure; but didn't had any time to spent on them in his lifetime. That connects them together to fulfill their dreams before cancer cell takeover them. Thumbs up movie and it's like sailing the vessel when river got drys.

"Galanna Galanna"

ගලන්න ගලන්න ගලන්න ගලන්න
ගංගාවක් වී
උල්පත පසු කර...

වැවක් වෙලා නතර වෙන්න
නෙලුම් මලක් යට .....

විල් දිය මත ගල් කැටයක්
වැටුනු වෙලාවට...
රැල් සිය දහසක් නැගේවි
රිදිලා හදවත...

දූවිල්ලෙන් වැසුනු දාට
මුලු මිටියාවත...
සිහිකරන්න කඳු පාමුළ
මව්කිරි උල්පත...

බිම්මල් යට පිපුනු පැතුම්
පෑගී යන විට..
කඳු මුදුනට නැග බලන්න
ජීවිතයේ උස...

This song was sung by Indika Upamali as lead when she was a teen. It was for a teledrama telecasted on SLRC long time back when we were kids and I couldn't get the name of it to my mind now. It was about protecting a lake. Should be a nice story but I couldn't remember any of it other than the main actor who was trying to save the lake or somewhat. This song was appear as a welcome song of an event on the story.

The song was first a poem done by Rathna Sri Wijesinghe.

ඇල්මෙන් අකුරට ඇවිදින්
අකුරු අහිදගෙන
කදු මුදුනට නැග බලන්න
ජිවිතයේ උස..

The above part was removed from the original poem to add my favorite verse in the whole song "බිම්මල් යට පිපුනු පැතුම්". And that's where the Dreamers stick in.

"Vassanaya"

This is another epic piece done by Rathna Sri Wijesinghe. "Vassanaya" was a one generation's favorite as it was selected to be appeared in Sinhala Literature text books. And our focus is gone to the last verse which is the peak of the whole composition.

‘ගිම්හානයේ ගිලන් වී කෘශව සියුමැලිව
ඇදී ඇදී ඉකි ගැසූ ගඟ නැවත පිරිපුන්ය
දුෂ්කරයි කියා හැර යා යුතුද ජීවිතය
කටු පොකුර සිප ගනිමි හෙට මලක් වනු පිණිස’

― රත්න ශ්‍රී විජේසිංහ
‘වස්සානය’ කාව්‍ය සංග්‍රහය.

So dreamers, did you found any link between these four classics?