Richard Rodgers: "South Pacific"

"South Pacific" has returned; a reunion concert just occurred. The novelist Lorrie Moore has confessed that she sometimes watches and rewatches "This Nearly Was Mine" (when she should be working).

This is the gold-standard example of a "rearview mirror" song. It's everything you wish you could say to your ex--but you can't, because your ex is receding in the distance (you see her via rearview mirror).

People say that a breakup is especially hard because you're mourning both (a) the loss of routines and (b) the loss of dreams, things you didn't actually have but could enjoy anticipating. It's (b) that inspires the bridge of Richard Rodgers's song.

So clear and deep are my fancies

Of things I wish were true;

I'll keep remembering evenings

I wish I'd spent with you.

I'll keep remembering kisses

From lips I'll never own--

And all the lovely adventures

That we have never known.

In the wake of loss, there is only rumination; Oscar Hammerstein deploys repeated words, repeated phrases, to suggest that the speaker is trapped in his head.

Now, now I'm alone--

Still dreaming of Paradise.

Still saying that Paradise...

Once nearly was mine...

No hopeful twist, no comforting moral. The singer leaves the stage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjPUU9JkqhA

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