“Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream, it is not dying.”
The phrase turns in my head just as the vinyl turns on my record player. Again and again, spinning and spinning in endless loops. I can’t seem to escape it. Even as the needle reaches the end of the record, this opening lyric from the Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows,” continues to whirl endlessly.
After taking a moment and reading the lyrics to myself on the back of the vinyl cover, I realized why this song had succeeded in holding such an iron grasp. Rather than the current mundane themes of relationships, breakups or revenge, this song centered on the fundamental questions of life, death, being, knowledge, and existence—questions that all of humanity is faced with. In a world dominated by artificiality and superficiality, the facades created by social media and the insecurities preyed upon by trends and influencers, being exposed to a piece of music that disregarded all of it was somewhat revolutionary for me.
This song embraced the search for knowledge, truth and understanding—things that I found to be lacking in the world around me. With statements like “love is all love is everyone,“ and “ignorance and hate may mourn the dead,” I was able to connect the piece to my own reality of living in a time where violence, misunderstanding and conflict are the issues of import. It reminded me that the solutions to our dilemmas are simple if we could only develop more enlightened perspectives on our lives.
Even if humanity may not reach this state, the song showed me that I can by working towards becoming a more conscious individual. “Tomorrow Never Knows” also embraced the existential nature of life that I had difficulty facing on my own. By exposing me to the idea that perhaps turning off my mind is not dying, or that “surrendering to the void” is actually only a conduit to finding the “meaning of within.”
Art has power. My experience is a testament to this statement. To some it may sound cliché or typically teenagerish, but music and art have the power to change our perspectives and allow us to live richer, deeper and more meaningful lives. Through art, we are able to experiment with our own perceptions and understandings. We are able to navigate through the vibrant tumult of life. Embrace the art you love and allow it to guide you, for Tomorrow Never Knows.
