Que sera, sera / Whatever will be, will be / The future's not ours to see
If you know the phrase Que Sera, Sera, it’s likely you heard it sung in “The Man Who Knew Too Much”, the 1956 classic from my all-time favorite film director, Alfred Hitchcock. The song, sung by Doris Day, won the Academy award for Best Song, and became Ms. Day’s signature song.
Then, in 1973, San Francisco funk band Sly and The Family Stone took the famous song and added some seasoning. Slowed down and gospel’d up, the Fam created a whole new sound to accompany the well-known lyrics. Much like how Marvin Gaye and Jimi Hendrix reimagined the Star-Spangled Banner, or Stevie Wonder to the Happy Birthday song, THIS is the version that should be remembered. Lyrics like these need to be hollered, not lullaby’d.
For the monolingual folks, the song wastes no time in translating the phrase for you: Whatever will be, will be. This is one of my life mantras, less apathetic and more of an acknowledgement that you can only control what you can control. If life, that ain’t much. Even making a bold move like quitting your job will take you down an unpredictable and largely uncontrollable path. It’s Space Mountain without knowing if they finished building the track. But that’s the excitement and beauty of this thing called life. Que sera, sera!
You can learn more about Sly & The Family Stone here:
About the Curator - Ben Young:
Ben Young lives a life of polarity. He has split his life between the coasts: half his life on the West (California) and half on the East (Georgia and Virginia). He has pursued careers in the art world (film school graduate) and the corporate world (executive with Fortune 500 companies). And he is Biracial, the personification of being two things at once.
Ben’s musical influences were formed by music loving parents, raised in a world of John Coltrane and John Lennon, James Taylor and James Ingram, Huey Lewis and the News and Prince and the Revolution. Saxophones, electric guitars, synthesizers, and breakbeats filled the air Ben breathed from birth. And being born one year after the birth of Hip Hop, Ben has been joined at the hip with the genre his entire life.
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