A year from now we’ll all be gone

All our friends will move away

And they’re going to better places

But our friends will be gone away

The song begins with a bittersweet note about friends moving away to better places, but still not knowing if your will ever really see them again. In Beloved, Sethe leaves behind Sweet Home to be ‘in a better place,’ knowing she may never see the people there again. Also, there is also another ‘better place’ mentioned in the story because she murders and attempts to murder her children, so they can escape slavery and die, because death is a better place than slavery.

Nothing is as it has been

And I miss your face like Hell

And I guess it’s just as well

But I miss your face like Hell

The next verse talks about how much a life can change when someone is absent. This reminds me of a lot of the characters in this story, but in specific the mothers who lost their children in the book. Never being able to see them grow up, Baby Suggs, Sethe, and Sethe’s mother all dealt with the pain of never seeing their child’s faces again because of something out of their control. To the point that ‘I guess it’s just as well’ because they had to find a way to not attach themselves to the babies.

Been talking ’bout the way things change

And my family lives in a different state

And if you don’t know what to make of this

Then we will not relate

This verse relates to Sethe and Paul D’s relationship. After so many years, they are different people, yet they still remember what they went through. However Sethe is very distant from her family, with the death of her husband and trauma ridden relationship with her kids. Paul D has to accept her for all that she is.

Rivers and Roads

Rivers and Roads

Rivers till I reach you

As the final chorus repeats, almost like a mantra, one can think of the distance, time, and death between us and those in our past. Sethe literally crossed rivers and roads to get away from Sweet Home, just like so many other slaves who made the same journey. In this context, ‘You’ might represent freedom, because there is no other choice but to keep crossing ‘rivers till I reach you’ because the alternative is unbearable.