Blue, blue my world is blue.
Blue is my world now I’m without you.
These are the opening lines of a song called Love Is Blue (L’amour Est Bleu), which was an easy listening hit of 1968. I loved that song when I was a child. I had it on record, and I used to play it on my little record player. It seems almost preposterous to me that I’m old enough to have used that technology. But yes, record players were still a thing when I was young, and not just for sound aficionados as they are today. Everybody had one, even kids.
Nowadays we stream music. Its cheap and convenient. I can listen to multiple renditions of Love Is Blue right now, virtually for free. Life was different in the ’70s, though. Back then, music was expensive and sometimes difficult to acquire. Once lost, it usually couldn’t be had again. So we treasured our records. Part of the reason I loved that particular record so much was that I didn’t own very many. But I guess I didn’t love it quite enough to take care of it. I left it on the floor.
Do you know what else I had back then? A rocking chair. I’m sure you can guess what happened next. I sat down on my rocking chair. Crack! Good-bye record. I’m not sure which I miss more now: the chair or the record. I eventually broke the chair, too. I wish I could have them both back. Blue, blue, my world is blue. Blue is my world now I’m without you.
The moral of the story is that you shouldn’t leave the things you love lying on the floor. If only I could impart this wisdom upon my children. Everything they own is on the floor! I keep trying to explain to them what will happen if they don’t start taking care of their things. I’d like to spare them some regret, but perhaps this is a lesson that we each have to learn for ourselves. Maybe it only becomes clear when we’ve lost a cherished thing through our own carelessness, and it has made us feel blue.