"Open Your Eyes"

Some days, people miss all of the beauty that is all around them.  This morning before I came to the church, I took a five minute stroll around our yard, which in the fifteen years we have lived there, has never won "Yard of the Month" and probably never shall, but we like it.  These are the very quick photos I made of what I found there, and yes, with no exceptions, I planted everything that you see:  Sego Palm in bloom (above) followed by Bougainvillea, Philodendron in bloom, a wispy purple perennial whose name I never knew; baby grapefruit as green as can be on the tree;  and a yellow flowering perennial whose name I have forgotten but whose look we all love.

Years ago, Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane wrote a lovely waltz called "Open Your Eyes" which almost no one sings today.  A pity that, since it pretty much sums up the fact that if you do not "Open Your Eyes" and pay attention to the beauty all around you, you will be the poorer for it.

I looked for the lyrics of "Open Your Eyes" but could not find them; since a newer song with the same title has superseded the one from the late 1940s by Lerner and Lane.  Not to worry, I have jotted them down, here and want to say that they are probably still under copyright and so I am providing them here in deep appreciation for the gifts and talents of those two fabulous songwriters, as well as with a nod to the absolutely darling Jane Powell who introduced the song in the film "Royal Wedding" and will sing it for you, again, today, if you follow the link indicated below. 

Open Your Eyes

by Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane

Open your eyes!
There's a sapphire sky above us, high above us,
Made for you when you open your eyes!

Open your eyes!
There's a carpet of jade around us, laid around us,
All for you when you open your eyes!

Let me show you the sights, take you on a tour,
Of this great, new, fabulous world we own -
We alone!

So, open your eyes,
And you'll see how this momentary,
Ordinary night can seem more unreal than a dream!

Lerner's words are gorgeously romantic with an interior rhyme pattern that is so complex it looks simple; Lane's tune is fittingly glamorous, as well.  I encourage you to watch and listen to Miss Powell as she sings the song and dances to the music of it, with Fred Astaire (no better partner being available at that or any other time).  And yes, it is that wonderful scene where they are dancing on an ocean liner (not a cruise ship, children, but in the era before transatlantic commercial flight, ships actually took people from Point A to Point B and were called ocean liners.  As in, a line that goes from Point A to Point B).  Jane and Fred are dancing, mid-Atlantic, on their way to see the Royal Wedding (Elizabeth and Phillip, not William and Kate).  The wind and waves pick up; yet, Fred and Jane go on with the dance in a scene based on a real life occurrence for Fred and his sister and dancing partner, Adele, which happened mid-ocean in 1923, on their way to yet another Royal Wedding, that of Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon to H.R.H. the Duke of York. Yes, H.M. Queen Elizabeth II's parents.  Such trivia!  Such name-dropping! Such fun!

Here is the link: "Open Your Eyes" staring Jane Powell, with Fred Astaire.

"I seldom change ships in mid-ocean..."  (If you can tell me who said that and in what film, then you have your eyes as open as much as mine are!).