I think I’ve heard the famous melody and chorus of “Leaving on a Jet Plane” a million times in my life. It’s one of those songs that has become so interwoven into the quotable and hackneyed American pop songbook that it has been stripped of the impact it might have had at its introduction. The very title has become a lighthearted quip one might make at the approach of pending air travel.

Mary Travers - The New York Times
Mary Travers - The New York Times

The melody played in my head again as I saw the front page of nytimes.com tonight, which announced the death of Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary. Other than the fact that she was the Mary of Peter, Paul and Mary, I never really knew much about the woman. But the melody and chorus of that song were there, hard-wired in my brain.

Then I realized… it was only the familiar melody and chorus in my head. That was all I knew of the song. In my nearly 40 years, I had never listened to the entire song from start to finish. So I downloaded it.

After listening to the first verse…

All my bags are packed. I’m ready to go.
I’m standing here, outside your door.
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye.

… I had to stop listening.

When I was seven, I buried my grampa (my best buddy). I said goodbye to my dad when I was nineteen. I gave a eulogy at my first love’s memorial when I was twenty-two. Since then, many more funerals, many more goodbyes. A first full listening of “Leaving on a Jet Plane” would require some space.

I put the song in my iPod, walked to the Hudson River just before midnight, sat alone on a bench, and hit ‘play.’ I heard… really heard these lyrics for the first time:

Now the time has come to leave you.
One more time, let me kiss you.
Then close your eyes. I’ll be on my way…

Dream about the days to come,
when I won’t have to leave alone.
About the time I won’t have to say…

Kiss me and smile for me.
Tell me that you’ll wait for me.
Hold me like you’ll never let me go…

I listened… and listened. I thought about all those wonderful people I had the privilege to love. I thought about the gifts that they all were, about the irreplaceable experience of having them all in my life for the time I had them. Like all of these borrowed gifts in life, I had to give them up. I cried, recalling the unique pain of each goodbye.

Every place I go I’ll think of you.
Every song I sing I sing for you…

It is truly exhilerating to know that the act of listening – really actively listening – to a song, a simple folk song with a simple narrative about a mere moment, can completely transport me when I let it. This song just took me to a place of profound sadness, gratitude, loneliness, and joy in a span of four minutes… or sixteen minutes if I count the replays.

Perhaps “Leaving on a Jet Plane” is a silly song to some. Maybe even a trite piece of sentimental pop, though it was written at a time when I imagine a lot of people were saying goodye. But after this experience with it, I will forever think of it as a beautifully-crafted glimpse into a precious human experience. That experience, whether by distance or death, is the profound experience of separation.

What a testament to what a song can be and what a song can do. Thanks, Mary.

George

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