Let the river run

Sometimes, nothing beats an old song to remind you that classics should always have a place in your playlist. By some quirk of the channel-surfing karma, I watched the last hour of Working Girl again yesterday after a really long time. It's all '80s in it's big-hair, shoulder-pads glory, and in a time when Harrison Ford still looked like he could play Indiana Jones without getting a cardiac arrest. The acting isn't the greatest-- least of all Melanie Griffith's-- but the last scene is worth it all.



I think it's the combination of how director, Mike Nichols pans out of her office into a panoramic view of the cityscape and Carly Simon's uplifting "Let the River Run". The song hits such a euphoric note that it gets me every time. The movie may be dated but the song definitely isn't. Moving, inspiring, and triumphant, it's a call to dare, to dream, to desire, to demand, and to declare.

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Silver cities rise,
The morning lights
The streets that meet them,
And sirens call them on
With a song.

It's asking for the taking.
Trembling, shaking.
Oh, my heart is aching.

We're coming to the edge,
Running on the water,
Coming through the fog,
Your sons and daughters.

We the great and small
Stand on a star
And blaze a trail of desire
Through the dark'ning dawn.
-Carly Simon, "Let the River Run"