Carter Gates -- Hymn #101

 December 8, 2022 

The song "Hymn #101" by Joe Pug was something unfamiliar to me because I do not really listen to these types of songs a lot. So when listening to it and discussing the lyrics and meaning behind them during class, I took a step back and just listened to what my classmates were saying about it because I was just trying to understand what the song what saying exactly. The first stanza of the song struck me as the most interesting and was the most intriguing of all of them because I could relate to it. The first stanza states: 

And I’ve come to know the wishlist of my father

I’ve come to know the shipwrecks where he wished

I’ve come to wish aloud, among the overdressed crowd

Come to witness now the sinking of the ship

Throwing pennies from the seatop next to it

When I first read these lyrics, I kind of understood them and thought they meant something different from what some others were saying their class. For me, the "shipwrecks" meant like metaphorical cliffs or edges, where something bad was happening and things weren't going well, so he was making a wish or saying a prayer in hopes that someone/something, like God, or the universe, or something similar, will hear and answer by helping him improve things. I also thought that "shipwrecks" could be seen as the mistakes one has made in one's lifetime, and wishing to atone for them and make things right. This led me to think that the "sinking of the ship" was one giving up and realizing that there is no righting the wrong and that one's life going down the drain and all of the efforts made to help were just a waste of time. So, the 'throwing pennies from the seatop next to it" then meant that history is basically repeating itself, with someone else making the same mistakes as the one who came before them. 

I could relate to this because my mom tells me that I am a lot like her when she was my age, and that I have inherited all of her "bad" traits, such as procrastination and "wearing my heart on my sleeve" so I get taken advantage of sometimes, so I feel like I am repeating mistakes she did. It does worry me because I know she wants me to be better than she was and she is doing her best to help, but I feel like sometimes i just can't do anything to help myself, and by the time I realize that something is going wrong, it ends up being to late and I make the mistake. I have gotten better and improved on some things, but life is a long journey full of twists and turns, so who knows what will happen.