lo que será, será

Image Source: http://www.cdandlp.com/

A friend of mine sent me this song today - Doris Day's Que Sera Sera (whatever will be, will be). The song was a part of the original soundtrack of Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much staring Doris Day and James Stewart.

In the song the narrator asks questions like "what will be?" and "what is to come?". The chorus goes " Que Sera, Sera,/ Whatever will be, will be/ The future's not ours, to see/ Que Sera, Sera/ What will be, will be."

According to Wikipedia, the phrase "Que Sera Sera" has no history in Spain, Italy, or France, and in fact is ungrammatical in all three of these Romance languages. It is composed of Spanish or Italian words superimposed on English syntax. It was evidently formed by a word-for-word mistranslation of English "What will be will be", merging the free relative pronoun what (= "that which") with the interrogative what? *

Image Source: https://fi.wikipedia.org/

This little digging reminded me of another song I was quite fond of in college that involved ungrammatical translation - A Tout le Monde by Megadeth. This song has a far darker tone where Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine tries to express what a person who wants to end his/her life would want to say to the world. The chorus goes "à tout le monde, à tous mes amis, je vous aime, je dois partir" which roughly translates to "To everyone, to all my friends, I love you, I must leave". 

Unlike what most people think, this song doesn't glorify suicide. The lines from this song that haunt me the most are "Moving on is a simple thing/ What it leaves behind is hard/ You know the sleeping feel no more pain/ And the living all are scarred"

In a way both the songs look at future and uncertainty from very different places. While one talks about accepting and making the most of life's challenges with a rose-tinted optimism, the other talks about highlights how messy and ugly and painful life can get, especially if someone very close to you leaves.

I've not had to deal with any great personal loss so far. I've been fortunate in that regard. I cannot even begin to imagine what what would be like. But it is one of those things that is a given in life. I hope I have the fortitude to deal with it when it comes.