Massachusetts: One Place I Have Never Seen

Living gratefully today, I generate reverence in my heart for the life and love within me. I give thanks for the people I love and who love me. I deeply appreciate my sense of hearing and the music I love too.  

I listen to music in streaks, and I am on a Bee Gees streak lately. Long a fan of some of their oldest songs, one of my favorites is "Massachusetts."  It was released in 1967 and became the first #1 single in the United Kingdom for the group, and sold over 5 million copies worldwide.

Like the Bee Gees when they wrote it, I have never even been to the state. After watching the Bee Gees documentary "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" and learning that the brothers hadn't been there prior to writing the song, it struck me . . . this idea of what inspires us, what sparks a composer of words and music. 

With a little further research, Wikipedia tells me: 

The song was written in the Regis Hotel, New York City during a tour of the United States. The song was intended as an antithesis to flower power anthems of the time such as "Let's Go to San Francisco" and "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" in that the protagonist had been to San Francisco to join the hippies but was now homesick. The idea of the lights having gone out in Massachusetts was to suggest that everyone had gone to San Francisco.

And from Barry Gibb: There are two different memories, Robin remembers us doing it in a boat going around New York City. And I remember us checking in at the St. Regis with Robert, going to the suite, and while the bags were being brought in we were so high on being in New York, that's how 'Massachusetts' began. I think we were strumming basically the whole thing, and then I think we went on a boat round New York. I don't know if we finished it, but I think that's where the memories collide. Everybody wrote it. All three of us were there when the song was born.

Listen to Massachusetts. One line written by the Brothers Gibb is "And Massachusetts is one place I have seen." A little ironic.

Massachusetts is an Algonquin word which roughly translates to "at or about the great hill." Isn't that life?  A great hill we climb to reach new vistas and shifts in our perspective? 

The song about a place they had never been was recorded in London by brothers from Australia, after being written in New York City. Go figure. Every song has a story. Every poem has a story. Every word has a story.