Somewhere, there’s a Pit of Despair
with the cares of the world gathered round:
Grim-faced, while you’re being displaced,
all their whispers are pulling you down, down, down …

Cast down to the Pit of Despair,
give in to your care,
they’ve hidden the stair.
Whether you plead soft or shout,
you’ll find no way out
while the fog of your doubt
clouds the stifling air.

There’s nothing funny when you’re stuck down in that dark,
lower than an eighteen-foot giraffe,
But when you float on up with light, careless regard,
those hollow-hearted things might make you laugh.

Somewhere, there’s a Pit of Despair
where the cares of the world like to play.
I’ve found when I count them as clowns
they all quietly fade, fade away.

Float up my friend, from the Pit of Despair;
untethered you dare to fly through the air.
Freely you whisper or shout,
and singing it out, you find your new route
out of the Pit of Despair.
_______

Copyright 2025 M. Ryan Taylor

Note: For a musical setting, you might imagine something from They Might Be Giants … satirical and upbeat … because if you can’t laugh, or at least poke fun, at despair, you haven’t really gotten over it.

I started this lyric a few days ago, but then needed a break from it, as I hadn’t any ideas of where to go with the second half until this morning. The thought of a giraffe in the pit, as a way to measure how deep it was, helped me to turn the lyric in the direction I was hoping it would go (hopeful as opposed to resigned). Something that has been a hard shift in attitude for me, but absolutely necessary to my journey, has been to ‘care less’ about things. The spiritual concept of becoming unattached to ideas, stories about how things should be, or outcomes I have no control over … this was really a tough one for me. But, there’s big hope and trust available to us when we care less about little hopes.

Photo: Gary Meulemans via Unsplash

Post filed under All UkulelePlay! Blog Posts.