Dog Days Are Over

Happiness is not always a welcome visitor. For those who live long in misery and hardship, it can be treated with suspicion as it a herald of the unknown. When you are in the depths, there is a predictability to your situation. There is familiarity and surety in continued wretchedness; security in knowing that things will not change, they will remain grim, and hard and despondent. One can be prepared for that and be resigned to it, however deplorable that situation remains for that person. Acceptance saves you from the mustering and expending of precious energy on a continued and most likely futile struggle. However, things are changing for the subject of the song.

"Happiness hit her Like a train on a track Coming towards her Stuck, still no turning back"

For what is most likely the first time, in a long time, happiness has burst inexorably and explosively into their life. Now, that person had so much more potentially to deal with: in managing an unfamiliar, intense emotion, which brought with it questions. Perhaps they may be thinking: How long will this last? Do I deserve it? Will it be taken away from me? What do I do or have to give, to keep it? Such a lot to deal with. And questions with no ready, easy, predictable answers. When faced with fear of the unknown and the vulnerability it places them in, some people may flee from it (back where they know best)…… In this case, maybe physically ‘hiding’ from the source of their new-found happiness, being unfaithful with others in an attempt to sabotage or ‘kill’ the happiness, or seeking escape from her emotions through getting drunk.

"She hid around corners And she hid under beds She killed it with kisses And from it she fled With every bubble She sank with her drink And washed it away down The kitchen sink"

But nothing has changed, despite their efforts. What was thought killed is still there, those flushed away feelings, returned. The dog days are over! and with it, the safety of that dark, long inhabited space.

"The dog days are over The dog days are done The horses are coming So you better run"

The happiness visited upon them is grand and beautiful but also terrible in the damage it could wreak. It is an energy wild and powerful, loud and unpredictable. It is not enough to hide or stick one’s head in the sand. One has to learn to run!

"Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers Leave all your love and your longing behind You can't carry it with you if you want to survive"

Run for all that is important! Run to avoid snags and entanglement that will overwhelm you. Leave what is holding you back, behind. Those encumbrances that will slow you down.

"The dog days are over The dog days are done Can you hear the horses? 'Cause here are they come"

This is your chance. There is a new, exciting and wonderful dawn. The dark is banished and over. But you must learn to live in the light, as it rushes toward you, likened to a stampede of horses.

"And I never wanted anything from you Except everything You had and what was left after that too, oh"

And as an echo from that dark, they hear what they have known. The manipulation of a person who claimed they were not demanding, yet wanted the entirety of the song’s subject for themselves. There was dread within that statement but also the lure of perhaps returning to a place where even in a perverse way, one is wanted, needed.

"Happiness hit her Like a bullet in the back Struck from a great height By someone who should know better than that"

"The dog days are over The dog days are done Can you hear the horses? 'Cause here they come"

Happiness was not going away. It’s source, was a person who offered something more and different than the song’s subject had known, and they did not care in how they gifted it, with such intensity and weight. Given their knowledge of our dear subject’s past (how else should they have known better), they should have known to be delicate, warming but less brilliant in what they gave. But regardless, the dog days are over. And ultimately, this is a song about new beginnings, the end of tyranny and the potential for a brave and wonderful new epoch.
Blink. Get used to the light then run with the horses. Keep up with happiness and its riches and challenges for if you can stay the course, it will be magnificent!

"The horses are coming So you better run Here they come!"