Genre: Broadway MusicalArtist: Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein
Album: Sound of Music
This song is a very special song on so many levels. For one thing, it was the last song that Rodgers and Hammerstein composed together. While they wrote this song, Oscar Hammerstein was suffering from stomach cancer. He died nine months later. This song is a memorial to him. Indeed, in more ways than one, it is a song to say farewell.
I love the connotation that this song has. Captain von Trapp is about to leave Austria, a country that he deeply loves. He sings this song as a last farewell to his country. I love the scene in the movie where he begins to cry and can't finish the song. His country means that much to him. He knows it is time to say goodbye to a wonderful era, but it is so hard to make that change.
Even though the lyrics don't really mean much to me, the emotion of the song really touches me. I have also experienced such moments of having to leave an era that was so beautiful to me that I could hardly bear leaving. Many experiences on my mission fit this experience. Whenever I had to leave certain areas or certain friends, it was really hard knowing that things would never be the same again. The best thing that can be done to honor those eras is to remember them.
