Everthing Waits to Be Noticed—Especially Jane Austen’s Hidden Beauties

Recently I dusted off the 2002 CD entitled “Everything Waits to Be Noticed”, the amazing vocal collaboration amongst the very famous Art Garfunkel and not very famous (but also first-rate multitalented musicians) Maia Sharp and Buddy Mondlock, which my wife and I had listened to death when it first came out and I heard about it.  Rock and pop harmonies on a level of quality only equaled by the likes of Crosby Stills & Nash, the Beatles, and a handful of other bands.

So as I listened for the sixth or seventh time this week to it, including the title song….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGs9D3JwwqE

“Everything Waits to Be Noticed”

Everything waits to be noticed
A tree falls with no one there
The full potential of a love affair
Everything waits to be noticed

Twenty-eight geese in sudden flight
The last star on the edge of the night
A single button come undone
The middle child, the prodigal son

Everything waits to be noticed
A trickle underneath a dam
The missing line from the telegram
Everything waits to be noticed

The whispering pains that say you're living
The slow burn of not forgiving
The quiet room, the unlikely pair
The full potential of a love affair

Everything waits to be noticed

Longing for braver days
Cautiously turning a phrase
Going unnoticed

But everything waits to be noticed
The changing light in the upper air
The full potential of a love affair
Everything waits to be noticed.

…it occurred to me that this song would both  (a) have been enjoyed by Jane Austen as lyric poetry, in particular because the “message” of the song is that the small, subtle beauties of the world are out there waiting to be noticed by us, regardless of how long it takes us to see them; and (b) be a perfect description of the hidden beauties of Jane Austen’s own fiction—I love how the lyrics blur the line between natural beauties and the subtleties of love and relationship, which of course were much more Jane Austen’s subject matter than the former.

It just happens that in the case of Jane Austen’s novels, a great deal of their beauty and mystery has waited 200 years to be noticed—a long time indeed, but I think that if she’s watching, she’s thinking “Better late than never”.

Cheers, ARNIE

@JaneAustenCode on Twitter