Old Joy

There is currently a contest running for fans of Noah and the Whale to design artwork for their song "Old Joy", which as I'm not a graphic designed at all I hadn't been involved with or given much attention to. But someone I follow on Tumblr was talking about it, so I followed a link to a website where you can view and vote for the covers people have designed and scrolled through some of them.

I was left feeling vaguely confused, because all of the submissions I saw were beautiful, and although really good representations of the songs I felt sort of disappointed and betrayed.

The cover designs were so pretty. There were pictures of hands holding hearts, several doves, clouds and skies. The thing that a lot of them had in common was a reflection of peace.

If you're unfamiliar, the main, repeated one line of the song is:
"I'll sing day by day,
Old joy comes back to me."

And all of the artists that had designed really nice covers seem to have taken the idea of the returning of "old joy" to be a good thing. They’re probably not, but I realised I never have.

To me, past the hope and contentment in “Old Joy” there’s always been a melancholy side to it. I think it’s a personal thing, the mind going through a cycle. Everything will be okay, there’ll be a balance, being alive is contentment. And then something amazing happens. Maybe it’s falling in love, or going to a really beautiful place, and it’s like seeing the stars. Everything is more than just right, it’s perfect and magic and full.

The effects of this being taken away, being left by a lover or having to go home, or just the ending of a certain event or period of time are horrible. Once you’ve been that happy it’s so hard to go back, to get up and eat and work all day and watch TV and sleep, again and again and again. It’s indescribably difficult to have to be surrounded by people who just don’t understand what you’ve seen.

There’s a line in the song: “Tall buildings and a wife won’t be enough for me.”
I really hope that means what I think it does. That it’s not enough. That there’s more to the world.

And then, over time, it gets better. The blinding cloth falls slowly back over your shutting eyes. “Normality” restores. It’s horrible but true, that you once again have to become content with all that there is. And to me, that’s what “Old Joy” is about. “Old joy” is the small things, the things we have to find pleasure in because it’s all there really is.