Looking back. Reminiscing. We all do it at one time or another. We look back on those glory days in high school and reminisce about that first teenage crush. There is the time he or she said I do. The time we watched the babies take their first steps. We have fond memories of those same babies getting married and having babies of their own.
We look back on vacations, places worked, restaurants we loved, dinners with friends. The past is like a scrapbook filled with photographs. Memories are snapshots of events that made us cry and laugh.
So a song entitled “Lookin’ Back” would seem to be a nostalgia-driven tune.
Not for Jim Stanard.
According to Jim, “This song is really about looking forward. Bob Dylan wrote that ‘he not busy being born, is busy dying’ and this is the idea I’m exploring here. It’s never too late to discover, to learn, to live.”
Stanard knows whereof he speaks. He played guitar and gigged in his teens and during college. Then he began a lucrative career in the world of finance. “Every now and then I would drag the guitar out of the closet,” he said. “But I really didn’t play for about 40 years.”
All the same, music remained an important part of his life. “Even though I put the guitar away, I always loved music.” Then he retired from full-time work in 2005. “Not long after that I decided to see if I could take it up again,” Jim recalled.
And take it up he did. Stanard has released three well received full-length albums since 2018 – Bucket List, Color Outside The Lines, and most recently Magical, on which “Lookin’ Back” can be found.
“Lookin’ Back” acknowledges the advanced years of its author. He knows “I’ve got.”
Using the metaphor of closing doors, he acknowledges the doors to adventure and opportunity “keep blowin’ closed.”
But a few are still open just a crack
I figure just once more
I can catch one of those doors
If I don’t waste too much time lookin’ back
Again, this is in keeping with Stanard’s philosophy. “I see so many young people in their 50s who say ‘Oh, I’m too old for that!’” he says. “I mean, come on. You may have a lot more time than you think. People are living longer. So just try it and see where it goes.”
“Lookin’ Back” provides words of wisdom for those who have less left ahead than they have left behind. Still, the opening lines have advice even the young would do well to heed.
Some call this world a veil of tears
But I’m enjoying bein’ here
Seems like new adventures
Are everywhere to find
Jim Stanard’s “Lookin’ Back” is far from a song about reminiscing. It is a reminder for young and old alike that life is full of adventures – and they are ours for the taking.
