Howard Jones, Human's Lib 4

"Hide and Seek" is just a hauntingly beautiful song. I know it's considered sloppy thinking and lazy writing to throw around phrases like that, but sometimes the worn-out words really are the best. 

1980's synthesizer arrangements can easily sound dated nowadays, even when they are presented as retro-hip, and I can see someone trying to do a remake of this with acoustic guitar or piano instead. For me, however, the original has stood the test of time—it still gets to me as much as the first time I heard it. 

The fact that it has genuinely thoughtful lyrics certainly doesn't hurt, though they are probably too pretentious for the gritty and angry crowd. The single almost made it into the UK Top Ten in 1984, which would be quite unimaginable in the current musical climate. 

The good Catholic boy in me was a bit troubled by the suggestion that God, or whatever we wish to name the Absolute, could be bored or lonely, and I initially rolled my eyes at the clever play with gender. This doesn't bother me anymore, however, because I realize the song isn't meant to be a work of systematic theology, and sometimes a good slap does a world of good for our narrow assumptions. 

Jones is working from an Eastern perspective here, while a Platonist might choose to think of this being as a sort of Demiurge. Take what you need and leave the rest. 

It's a story about the joy of finding the unity of everything; putting up further barriers sort of defeats that purpose. Far too often we stress the transcendence of the Divine, to the point where we neglect the immanence of the Divine. 

I am grateful to Mr. Jones for helping me understand how there are bits of God, so so speak, to be found all around me, and in me, and that the task of wisdom involves reassembling them for myself. 

Many years later, I discovered the television show Babylon 5, and the character of Delenn said something that had me humming this very tune before she even stopped speaking: 

We believe that the Universe itself is conscious in a way that we can never truly understand. It is engaged in a search for meaning. So it breaks itself apart, investing its own consciousness in every form of life. We are the Universe trying to understand itself. 

The Stoic Logos isn't too far off from this concept. 

—4/2007 

A few words of commentary from Howard Jones: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJEUzQyEKU8&list=OLAK5uy_lFedI4jW6TKDjvu-C8M34duwjnJ3RlL3M&index=8 

And the song itself: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2H_7ralvK0&list=OLAK5uy_lFedI4jW6TKDjvu-C8M34duwjnJ3RlL3M&index=8 

Howard Jones, "Hide and Seek" from Human's Lib (1984) 

There was a time when there was nothing at all
Nothing at all, just a distant hum
There was a being and he lived on his own
He had no one to talk to, and nothing to do
He drew up the plans, learnt to work with his hands
A million years passed by and his work was done
And his words were these . . . 

Hope you find it in everything, everything that you see
Hope you find it in everything, everything that you see
Hope you find it, hope you find it
Hope you find me in you

So she had built her elaborate home
With it's ups and it's downs, its rains and its sun
She decided that her work was done, time to have fun
and she found a game to play

Then as part of the game
She completely forgot where she'd hidden herself
And she spent the rest of her time
Trying to find the parts

Hope you find it in everything, everything that you see
Hope you find it in everything, everything that you see
Hope you find it, hope you find it
Hope you find me in you

There was a time when there was nothing at all, nothing at all
Just a distant hum