Five Things To Love About "What A Year For A New Year"

By THE ENTHUSIAST

And We Thought The Dark Would Never End

You have probably not heard this song before. But if you listen to it today – New Year’s Eve, 2020 – you will cry. You will. The Enthusiast believes that – knows that – with such certainty that if you finish listening to this song without weeping, The Enthusiast will buy you a drink whenever we’re next able to gather together at The Grill. It’s true. The Enthusiast will.

Verses One and Two

"What A Year For A New Year" was released almost twenty years ago, but it sounds for all the world as though singer and songwriter Dan Wilson had access to a time machine set for 2020. The Enthusiast will let the lyrics speak for themselves. Here’s how the song opens:

What a year for a new year

We need it like we needed life, I guess

Last one left us lying in a mess

What a year for a new year

What a night for a sunrise

And we thought the dark would never end

Reaching out to try and find a friend

What a night for a sunrise, a sunrise

Verse Three

If those lyrics don’t sum up the past ten months, The Enthusiast doesn’t know what does. But now a pinpoint of light shines out:

What a day for a new day

And our star shines like a miracle

And our world is almost beautiful again

What a day for a new day, a new day, a new day

What a year for a new year

Verses Four And Five

And then, at last, we glimpse the future:

Soon we’ll be lying in our beds

And new dreams will fill our heads

And the old ones will be ended

Hope we’ll forget about this place

Let it go without a trace

Wipe the teardrops from our faces

What a year for a new year

Here’s To The New Dreams That Will Soon Fill Our Heads

The Enthusiast wept as he wrote this closing column. But not in sadness. In hope. In faith. In anticipation. What a day for a new day. What a year for a new year.

Number thirty-one, the final entry in a series.

New Year's Eve 2020

The Enthusiast (offbroadway@outlook.com) is the pen name of critic Michael Collins. He reports back only on what’s good, never what’s bad. He is currently imbued with the holiday spirit.