Chanting To Be Free

‘The Actor’ is a Justin Hayward song on The Moody Blues 1968 third album In Search of the Lost Chord.  22-year-old Hayward said that ‘The Actor’ is a very personal song for him, so he didn’t want to share what it is about and he supposedly wrote this at 3 in the morning while living in this small apartment where he would look out of his window and see this young woman across from him doing the same thing.  Perhaps Hayword was thinking about the William Shakespeare play “As You Like It”, which starts off with, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”, thus he sees himself as being an actor.  Just as he was watching this girl out of his window, she was also watching him and that made him feel like he was on stage.  Most likely, neither one of them is an actor, as they are both just going through their daily lives and by looking at each other through the curtains allows then to escape the monotony of their daily lives.

The curtain rises and as they are both alone, they wonder what the new day will bring for them.  The play unfolds before their eyes, seeing the same world from different viewpoints. As they are enclosed in their own solitude.  Like an actor, he is unable to live his life, but by watching things going on outside of his window (traffic, telephones, and problems with a cat), he is playing his part.  A bell rings to break him out of his trance and he realizes that they are each lonely and that is why they are looking at each other.  He has fallen in love with a woman that he doesn’t really know, but she has become an important part of his life.  They may have said hello to one another in the street, but he is moving a bit fast by calling her darling.  They are both home on a rainy afternoon with nothing better to do than to sneak peeks of each other through their windows and dream of how nice it could be if they were together.

The curtain rises on the scene,
With someone chanting to be free.
The play unfolds before my eyes,
Descends the actor who is me.
The sleeping hours take us far,
From traffic, telephones, and fear.
Put out your problems with a cat,
Escape until a bell you hear.
Our reasons are the same,
But there’s no one we can blame,
For there’s nowhere we need go,
And the only truth we know, comes so easily.
The sound I have heard in your hello,
Oh darling, you’re almost part of me.

Oh darling, you’re all I’ll ever see.
It’s such a rainy afternoon,
No point in going anywhere.
The sounds just drift across my room,
I wish this feeling I could share.
It’s such a rainy afternoon,
She sits and gazes from her window.
Her mind tries to recall his face,
A feeling deep inside her grows.

Written for Thursday Inspiration #233 Legend of a Mind where the prompt word is day.