For this week’s Thursday Inspiration prompt, Jim Adams has given us the word “fly” as our challenge. He also featured the Crosby Stills & Nash song, “Helplessly Hoping” in this post. I’ve been a long time fan of CSN (and later, CSNY), and the rather melancholy “Helplessly Hoping,” with it’s beautiful harmonies, has always been one of my favorites.
But what came to mind when I saw Jim’s prompt was another song that has delightful harmonies and is rather melancholy, but at the same time, hopeful. It’s “Hummingbird” from the duo, Seals & Crofts.
I enjoyed this song for its different tempos and, while listening to the song without really thinking too much about the meaning of the words, I naively thought it was a just simple song about someone watching a graceful hummingbird flitting around the nectar-filled flowers and not wanting it to fly away.
But according to Jim Seals, the song is actually about the lifelong persecution Baha’i founder Baha u’llah endured because of his beliefs. The refrain “Hummingbird, don’t fly away” is a plea for forgiveness. Seals explained that the song relates to “how each one of the world’s spiritual teachers is misunderstood, and the first thing we do is strike out at them, behead them, hang them on a cross or whatever. Here mankind waits thousands of years for the coming of someone to help the unity of mankind, and then when he comes, they throw him in jail for 40 years and torture him. I was more or less trying to speak for the human race — presumptuous, I know — saying we were sorry.”
I am not a particularly spiritual person and I don’t really know anything about the Baha’i faith. But after gaining this insight about the song’s meaning, I was reminded of another favorite song of mine by a different duo, Simon & Garfunkel, “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” a song that also has spiritual roots.
Oh hummingbird, mankind was waiting for you to come flying along. Heavenly songbird, we were so wrong. We've harmed you. Oh hummingbird, lend us your wings. Let us soar in the atmosphere of Abha. Lift us up to the heaven of holiness, oh source of our being, oh hummingbird. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. In you I've found a fragrance. I'll love you 'til I die. I just love you, love you, love you. I don't even know the reason why. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. The sweetness of your nectar has drawn me like a fly. I just love you, love you, love you. I don't even know the reason why. Now, Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. Haven't you noticed the days somehow keep getting longer? And the spirit voices whisper in us all. Haven't you noticed the rays? The spirit sun in stronger And a new day is dawning for us all. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. The draught of understanding; wisdom, peace and love is ours. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away. Hummingbird don't fly away, fly away.
This, That, and the Other 
2 nice songs Fandango! I love bridge over troubled water!
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I feel like I have been living under a rock because I have never heard of Bahá’u’lláh before, and I didn’t recognize this song either. Actually, besides Summer Breaze. I don’t think that I can name another song done by the duo. Thanks for sharing your music, Fandango.
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In addition to Summer Breeze and Hummingbird, three other popular songs of theirs were We May Never Pass This Way Again, Diamond Girl, and Get Closer. I enjoyed them.
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I will check them out.
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I’m giving this first song for context, then I have one with “fly” in it. I married into a family who play this kind of music (a cousin has played at the grand ol’ opry a few times while also having lived with us while he went to Stanford earning a degree in engineering by which I don’t mean programming even though he knows computers as well), although my husband-not/Kyle-not-Kyle doesn’t play an instrument at all. The type is the Native American (as in Indian) line of my children’s ancestry. Their tribes had really been from Florida but were run out in the Trail of Tears. (I could give a YouTube video with a song from an album a few in the family did in about 1971, but that would be identifying.) The large family all went the country gentleman route — a little more refined than how Nanci, here, comes across.
Nanci Griffith
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Nanci considers herself more western rather than southern.
Gulf Coast Highway
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Gulf coast highway, he worked the rails
He worked the rice fields with their cold, dark wells
He worked the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico
The only thing we’ve ever owned is this old house here by the road
And when he dies he says he’ll catch some blackbird’s wing
And we’ll fly away to heaven
Come some sweet blue bonnet spring
She walked through springtime when I was home
The days were sweet, our nights were warm
The seasons changed, the jobs would come
The flowers fade, and this old house felt so alone
When the work took me away
And when she dies she says she’ll catch some blackbird’s wing
And she will fly away to heaven
Come some sweet blue bonnet spring
Highway 90, the jobs are gone
We tend our garden, we set the sun
This is the only place on Earth blue bonnets grow
And once a year they come and go
At this old house here by the road
And when we die we say we’ll catch some blackbird’s wing
And we will fly away to heaven
Come some sweet blue bonnet spring
Yes when we die we say we’ll catch some blackbird’s wing
And we will fly away together
Come some sweet blue bonnet spring
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This first video has more than one song sampled, as it turned out. Here are the starting lyrics to the second song (originally recorded by Nanci — covered by Bette):
https://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/n/nanci_griffith/from_a_distance.html
(By Julie Gold)
From a distance the world looks blue and green
And the snow-capped mountains white
From a distance the ocean meets the stream
And the eagle takes to flight
From a distance there is harmony
And it echoes through the land
~
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Hummingbird is S-O B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L-L
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Great choice Fandango 🙂
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Good song!
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