Sweetest songs and saddest thought

It strikes me that a big part of being human is learning to live with yearning. The constant search for personal and cultural meaning can be traced through history - from the pyramids, the poetry and tragedies of classical Greece and Rome, the development of religions, Shakespeare, the Enlightenment, through to the twentieth and twenty-first century obsessions with consumerism and instant satisfaction. Why can't we just 'live in the moment' and enjoy what we have, when we have it, without yearning for something else?

I've always loved the way that Percy Bysshe Shelley beautifully and succinctly writes about this in 'To a Skylark':

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Robert Smith - no stranger to the darker elements of life - draws on this idea in the stunning 'To Wish Impossible Things'. This is one of my favourite Cure songs...the viola part (on the album 'Wish') is haunting and lyrical. This live version truly is a sweet song that tells of saddest thought. Enjoy.

To Wish Impossible Things...live