Keeping A Sharp
Eye On The Bluebells
by Rose DeShaw
Many people think the
ending of the Mayan calendar in 2012 signifies
the Mayans somehow knew the world ends then, less
than two years away. Now it turns out they weren't
alone. There are little signs all over but
perhaps the strangest is the prophecy stuffed
into that beloved 50’s tune, once popular at
engagement parties and weddings, The Twelfth
of Never.
You wouldn’t think
Johnny Mathis was on the same wavelength as the
Mayans when he recorded the song in 1957. The
Twelfth of Never reaches for what sound like
eternal verities to express just how long love
would last. How could we know all these forever
things would ever vanish, simple things of nature
without which it is hard to imagine our world?
Look at the evidence. In
the very first line of his chorus, when the
singer promises to love, "till the
bluebells forget to bloom" Garden writer
Helen Yemm, warned recently in the Telegraph,
"Trample with care – loss of habitat
and poaching are destroying our bluebells." Not
coming up in the spring can surely be classed as
"forgetting."
After that the promise to
stop loving when, "the clover has lost
its perfume." Genetic engineering has
taken the scent out of meadow flowers.
Finally there's the promise
to love, "till the poets run out of
rhyme’". Just ask poets whether
anyone publishes rhyme anymore.
The world was a different
place back in 1957 when Mathis sang about
bluebells, the scent of clover and rhyming
couplets proving eternal love. They’d been
around as long as human memory.
Was the song meant to
predict our doom? Shouldn’t such song
analysis be making headlines in these last days?
Like:
MATHIS
HIT LINKED TO MAYAN CALENDAR – DID HE KNOW?
Fifties
hitster Johnny Mathis agonized over whether to
panic the known world by recording the Twelfth
of Never and its insight into our
future. What to do?
Likely
possessing covert but phenomenal psychic powers,
Mathis saw clearly that our world would end in
2012. Of course he could exploit this knowledge
and make millions (or be labeled as a nutcase and
persecuted). Still he owed it to our world to
leave some clues as to our fate so that we might
set our affairs in order.
Finally,
this great musical genius, using the skills that
served him so well in hit after hit, decided to
stuff his prophecy into the simple but ultimately
annoying song: The Twelfth of Never: Genetic
Engineering, Pesticides, Acid Rain, Demise Of The
Book, they are all present with a unforgettable
worm of a tune, even the title a clear warning
for what was to come. He never worried whether or
not it would become a hit. That’s just the
kind of guy he was.
"I’ll
love you till the bluebells forget to bloom
I’ll
love you till the clover has lost its perfume
I’ll
love you till the poets run out of rhyme
Until
the twelfth of never and that’s a *long,
long time."
(*55
years and then, BLOOEY!’ he thought in 1957
as he recorded these prophetic words, written by
Jerry Livingston and Paul Francis Webster who in
turn adapted it from the old English ballad: I
Gave My Love A Cherry).
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