Dave Porter - "Where Do Clouds Go?"

LYRICS

where do clouds go

after they pass by

do they just go on to blot the stars that shine from the skies?

or do they follow the wind

without a care

and on bright summer nights

oh sometimes they are there

where do clouds go

after they pass by

are they just like people that go on and then die?

and when you see

the small cloud passing by

do you ever stop to wonder

if he's lonely like you and I

where do clouds go

after they pass by

do they just go on to rain, or is that a tear from their eye?

for sometimes I feel

like a small cloud passing by

never knowing where I'm going

and never knowing why

where do clouds go

after they pass by

do they just go on to another fool, another fool such as I?

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This is a song whose lyrical power, it would seem, stems from its substitutionality or invitation thereto - the clouds, in their natural ambiguity, can take the form of people, or passing days/seasons, or past loves. The cloud is perhaps the closest we find in nature to transience embodied. This vaporous anchoring noun of the song lends it a special portability - the song does just as well in the wistful flipping through photo albums as it does in the train station or the field with open sky. My personal favorite place to bring this song currently is the Holzmarkttreppe near my residence in Tuebingen, where passers-by enter and leave (and sometimes linger) in cloud-like fashion.