A Sad, Old Song

It’s an old song. It’s a sad song. And we’re gonna sing it again.

The musical Hadestown has been stuck in my head since the election. Maybe it’s because it’ll be touring nearby, or maybe it’s just a damn good musical. Either way, it doesn’t matter—what matters is how this old, sad song feels like the perfect companion to the weeks I’ve spent grappling with what this election means.

The funny thing? The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, the one Hadestown retells, has been a weirdly big part of my life—both directly and in metaphor. From not getting cast in a college production of Eurydice to learning to trust people when they show me who they are, this story seems to find me at the strangest times.

Orpheus always looks back.

I’m gonna say it again:

Orpheus always looks back.

The myth is simple: Orpheus loves Eurydice. She dies. He uses his gift of music to convince the god of the dead to let her return. There’s just one condition: he must walk ahead of her out of the underworld and trust she’s behind him. At the last moment, Orpheus doubts. He turns. She was there the whole time. And, because he turned, she is damned.

It’s a story about trust and doubt, love and loss, and how we’re doomed to repeat our mistakes. Hadestown captures this perfectly, with its refrain: "It’s an old song. It’s a sad song. And we’re gonna sing it again."

Since the election, I’ve been stuck in a spiral of fear and reflection. I believe people act out of love and kindness, not cruelty—(sometimes misguided, yes, but rooted in a desire to protect what they care about). But this election has shaken that belief. It’s as if we’re trapped in our own version of Orpheus’s song: we don’t trust what’s ahead, so we turn back. We choose leaders who promise safety but sow division. And we keep singing the same story, over and over.

Here’s the thing about empires: they fall. Rome is gone, but the land remains, and so do the people. Italy, Britain, Germany—they all grew from the ashes of the Roman Empire.

America is an empire too, and its fall scares me. I need to affirm that fear: as someone with privilege, the collapse of the “safety net” terrifies me for myself. But I also know that fear isn’t nearly as justified for me as it would be for someone without my privilege. And strangely enough, the tweet that keeps circling my mind offers comfort: millions lived full lives during the fall of the Roman Empire. Farmers, artists, parents—they lived and thrived, even as the empire collapsed. Life goes on.

We’re gonna keep singing this song. The story won’t change unless we change it. And that starts with us—choosing kindness, trusting each other, and refusing to look back in doubt.

I’m not Orpheus. I’m not Eurydice. I’m not even in the chorus. I’m in the audience, watching this story play out. But I have the power to learn from it—and maybe even help rewrite it.