“Past hope. Past kindness or consideration. Past justice. Past satisfaction. Past warmth or cold or comfort. Past love. But past surprise? What an endlessly unfolding tedium life would then become!”

Francis Wolcott, Deadwood

“Sometimes people do good things for bad reasons. Bad things for good reasons. You do what you can.”

Michael Weston, Burn Notice

“I made a mistake.”
“No, you made a decision, that’s your job. No, the only mistake I can see is letting your people second-guess your decisions.”
“You’re right.”
“And now you’re letting me do it! You want my advice?”
“Yes.”
“Well I’m not gonna give it to ya.”

Dave Foley and Jimmy James, Newsradio

“Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever.”

The Father, The Road

“Whatever happens, happens.”

Spike Spiegel, Cowboy Bebop

“What is the point of you?”

Darren Nichols, Slings & Arrows

“You ever feel like nothing good was ever gonna happen to you?”
“Yeah. And nothing did. So what?”

Christopher Moltisanti and Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri, The Sopranos

“You know, I was God once.”
“Yes, I saw. You were doing well until everyone died.”

Bender and God, probably, Futurama

“Look at those assholes over there. Ordinary fuckin’ people, I hate ’em.”

Bud, Repo Man

“Am I wrong coz I wanna get it on til I die?”

2pac, “Unchained”

Connections or comparisons between the Beatles and Beethoven can as easily run aground of their own over-reaching fatuous facility, as they can hit their mark. I dare say that with [“Let It Be”] we hit the jackpot.

Beethoven’s last completed and published work is the “String Quartet in F”, Opus 135. He prefaces the final movement with a half-joking musical puzzle that reads, “Muss es sein? Es muss sein!” — “Must it be? It must be!” — The question phrase is set to a theme that is halting and ominous in tone with the accent of the phrase on the last word, “be”. The answer phrase is set to a theme that is forthright and calmly cheerful in tone, with the accent of the phrase on the middle word, “must”. The two themes are both alternate with, and are pitted against each other throughout this final movement, with the answer phrase very definitely getting the upper hand and the final word in the end.

Musicologists are undecided on how we should realistically read into this apparent “valediction” from the composer. Did he neccessarily[sic] realize it would turn out to be his last work? Did he intend the riddle to be taken so “seriously?”

The parallels with our current song –“Lass es sein” — and its context within the released works of our Own Sweet composers are hopefully obvious.

In either case, I think that one is intruigued[sic] and also challenged by an ambiguous duality in the message:

Petition: May something I want to happen but which might not be forthcoming be allowed to become an actuality.
Acceptance: With complete faith and patience in the inevitability of the outcome that is not the one I may “want,” I wistfully let go of any desire for that different eventuality, and ask that whatever is decreed by fate to be may happen with all good speed.

Our human foible here is to be trapped into the unquestioned assumption that the two prayers above are automatically in opposition to each other. Indeed, the truly sublime appeal of “Let It Be” as well as LVB’s Opus 135 is in the extent to which each encourages us toward a vivid foretaste of that blessed state in which both desires converge and become one and the same.

Alan W Pollack

“You know what you’re doing?”
“I know what I want.”

Vic Mackey and Shane Vendrell, The Shield