This Year

Like many other songs, Darnielle stitches together the personal and the universal using a scene that taps into our humanity.

On the one hand, here is a Boy (here is John), harboring a miserable home life, hating and fearing his stepfather, escaping into the city and underage drinking, meeting a girl he loves, swearing he will forge on through his personal hell.

On the other hand, here is Every Teen, harboring inexplicable isolation and disconnect, hating and (pretending s/he isn't) fearing authority, escaping into risky and often self-destructive tendencies, meeting a kindred soul entwined in platonic or romantic love, swearing that s/he will survive adolescence and the misery they're sure is eternal.

The line about Jerusalem is the most important line in the song. It is at once strong and fragile, hopeful and doomed. "Next year in Jerusalem" is customarily repeated at the end of Yom Kippur and the Passover Seder, expressing the desire to soon see a people traditionally scattered across the globe in unanimous celebration in their most sacred place. It's a strong spiritual conviction, ingrained within the orthodoxy, and a hope passed down through the generations. The sentiment is tied into the song to juxtapose the tragedy of the religious and youthful optimism. There is never going to be a "Next year in Jerusalem"; the area is fraught with violence, extremism, and political machinations, and there is an inescapable history that surrounds that physical location. Likewise, there isn't a magic Next Year for John. All of the Boy's hope, all of Every Teen's hope, won't change the fact that his/her home and adolescence is abusive/manipulative/painful/destructive, that there is inescapable history between the walls of his/her home.

It's almost a cruel cosmic joke that these "Chosen People" -- supposedly blessed by God, and these young boys and girls -- innocent and symbolic of humanity's future, are so earnest and so far from finding their cultural reprieve. Instead, Next Year will be no different, no closer to Jerusalem. And there's a sense that these people know -- years of repetition highlights how unlikely the promise of Jerusalem is and "ready for the bad things to come..." suggests he knew there was no escape from the beginning -- but can't face the hopelessness of it. But maybe the point is that believing in Next Year is all that matters. Because the only he and she and they and you and me can do is carry on through the present singing:

"I am gonna make it through this year If it kills me"