"High Hopes" by Kodaline,Wednesday, March 20, 2024 (repost)

Three years ago, I taught a lesson on Irish music to my students. I played examples of Celtic instrumental music. I showed videos of River Dance. I played sad songs like "The Parting Glass" and "Danny Boy." Then I played some famous Irish artists like Enya,  U2, and The Cranberries. Then I played  Kodaline's "High Hopes." When I asked my students which they liked the best, they said Kodaline. But that was kind of a stupid question for a music lover. There are times when I want to listen to Celtic bagpipes and jigs. There are times I want to go out and have fun in an Irish pub and hear Celtic punk rock. There are times I want to listen to U2, and it's certainly not the same day I want to listen to Enya, but those days happen too. But like my students, I think Kodaline's first album fits more into my everyday listening habits.

BROKEN BOTTLES IN THE HOTEL LOBBY. While In A Perfect World  is a great everyday listen, you have to be careful watching the music video for "High Hopes." It's a beautiful love story between an older man and a somewhat younger woman. The couple meets when she runs away from her wedding and she saves him from trying to kill himself in his car. They begin their relationship when he takes her to his meager cottage.  The two build their relationship, but the tone of the video changes when they are lying in bed and he notices the scars on her back. Then, as the guitar solo starts, the couple is shot by a man carrying a shotgun. The two are in a pool of blood.  The man wakes up in the hospital and sees her bed is empty. At the end of the video, she hugs him from behind. Lead singer Steve Garrigan wrote "High Hopes" after a bad breakup. I think the graphic nature of this video is meant to be metaphorical. The woman saves the older man from his destructive ways. They fall in love but when he discovers her scars, the relationship reaches levels of problems that lead to another person/outside factor "shooting"  both partners. The end of the video could either mean she left him and he's remembering her, and the embrace is just holding on to memories, or it could be that she left for a while but comes back to him. Either way, the video is a bit shocking, so I didn't play it for my students. 

 I KNOW IT'S CRAZY TO BELIEVE IN STUPID THINGS. In 2021, Garrigan released his memoir, titled High Hopes: Making Music, Losing My Way, Learning to Live, in which the singer talks about his shyness and became the lead singer of the immensely popular Irish band. He talks openly about therapy and living with social anxiety and how music was the vehicle to a place of healing. For me today, though, "High Hopes" got me thinking about how futile it seems to get ahead. It seems that I'll always be plugging along at the same type of job, even if I get more education. Every year the resources dry up just a little bit more, and you're left feeling as if you should be grateful for your job in the ever-growing "hard economic times."  Still, why are more duties added to the contract and no extra pay? Will the situation convalesce back to what it was? I think back to my hopeful outlook after just graduating from university and how oblivious I was to how the world actually works. And yet, the world keeps spinning around the sun. We have to have hope or else we go crazy. We have to believe that somehow the systems will work out or that we will find a solution hidden in an overlooked option. High hopes feel like friendly hills from far away, but as the day gets closer, they become jagged mountains. But we climb a mountain the same way we take a walk, one step at a time. 

Read “High Hopes” by Kodaline on Genius.