Lea Salonga... Second Chances

When emptiness is all there is to see
The joy that you once knew a distance memory
When the purpose of each morning is forgotten with each night
And it doesn’t seem to matter if you give up or you fight
Look again. That is when your world is about to change
Nothing in life is so permanent that love can’t rearrange

Second chances
Life is rich with second chances
Second songs with second dances, second melodies
For if you only got one shot
if what's for nothing's all you got
Your days will just be filled with single moments, single memories
But I believe hearts can conceive
Of more than one bright happy ending
Roads may split in two
You can’t go down both really fast
We know and yet we still forget
Our paths are never so unbending

Life has given you a second chance
Second chances
The world provides with second chances
New adventures, new romances, new responsibilities

For if you’re always looking back
Your eyes might miss the second track
You take no chances, seize no day, live no possibilities
But heart’s desire, hearts afire
A blaze you grow from a single ember
Yesterday turns toward tomorrow with brand new circumstance

What’s past is past but it’s not the last
We’re not alive to just remember

When life has said to you
"Not a chance, but two"

Life has granted you a second chance.

-=-=-=-=-

Beautiful song, isn't it? I feel there are some kinks in certain lines that need to be ironed out or re-written, like for a song that is positive there's a line that goes "You take no chances, seize no day, live no possibilities..." which is negative and quite didactic... but it is a beautiful song and Lea renders it beautifully.

It's from Allegiance the Musical, scheduled to come out on Broadway in 2012. I hope it becomes a hit and Lea earns another Tony for it. It's about the Japanese people. Well, that's as much as I know about the musical.

I post the song here because I want to believe that what the song says is true. That life IS filled with second chances. I'd love to have second chances at life. To take another shot at school, and mend relationships I've severed, erase regrets.

Playwrights are great teachers. They teach us about the world, about people, about ourselves. Read Shakespeare, Wilder, Rostand. Better yet, watch theatre! For example, PETA's Care Divas talked about the plight of OFWs in war-torn Israel... and about love. Recently World Theatre Project staged Macbeth, and it taught me what corruption is.

That's my advice today. Watch some theatre. I can't tell you for sure if life does give second chances. But when Allegiance comes out next year, we'll hear that from them and learn.