Somewhere Over the Rainbow

There's are rendition of this song by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole  that I find so haunting, I can barely stand it.  I listen to it and it possesses me and won't let me go.  I can't remember the last time a song effected me this way.

What is that longing, that almost completely naked yearning in this song?  It's there regardless of who sings it, I think. It's in the song.  In the movie Finding Forrester, there is a minimalist, instrumental version by Bill Frisel, that also haunts...in its own way.

Still, there's something about Is' version

I can't imagine that there is anyone who has not experienced that bittersweet melancholy of longing for something we imagine we once had or once experienced.  Depending on our personal makeup, we either get caught up in the feeling and get lost for awhile; or we may dismiss it as sentimental and move on.  Either way (or one of the millions of other options for experiencing this that lies between those two) most of us know that feeling.

What if that is in the nature of this particular human culture of which we are a part.  What if it is inevitable as the result of having turned our backs on being an animal, so that no matter where we are, who we're with, what we are doing, we are missing the knowing of being home.