Hope: Longing for One Kiss and One Song that Never Played
By T. L. Moody
If your nights were tangled up in longing for one kiss, one song that never played.
Editor’s comment: Hymn writer, T. L. Moody, was cautioned by a publisher of sacred music to consider removing this line from the piece before submission for publication consideration. When asked by the publisher to explain this line, and especially the meaning of “the kiss” and “the song,” Moody replied:
I love that it [this line] is being questioned in that it means the poetry of the lyric is doing its job. And that job, or one of them, is to evoke deep feeling and imagery in an expansive way so that each reader/singer can see some of their deepest moments within them though having lived very different circumstances from one another.
The kiss could be one of passion. The song that never played could be for someone, a wedding song.
The kiss could be one of pride, given on the cheek of someone’s child at their graduation. The song that never played could be one of the Pomp and Circumstance marches, a graduation missed because the child was killed in an automobile accident or was lost to the disease of addiction before the dream of graduation was reached.
The kiss could be one of tender endearment given by a father to his daughter. The song that never played could be one for the father-daughter dance at her Quinceanera or for a father-daughter dance at her wedding because she lost her father too soon to gun violence or by his own hand due to the disease of mental illness.
The kiss could be one given late in the night to the forehead of an infant, yet it isn’t. The song never played could be the lullaby that woman will never hum whether the reason is infertility, miscarriage, cancer.
And the list goes on...
While I would happily change that line if you request me to do so because it isn’t theological in nature, I do think it has the capacity to speak to some deep, wounded places in the human heart and experience.