Songs to Live By: 'Do You Realize??' by The Flaming Lips

Every month, 5AM StoryTalk explores a different song about our struggle to lead good and meaningful lives in a confusing, increasingly grim modern world...

Sources: Fausto García-Menéndez at Unsplash and Warner Bros.

“Do You Realize??”
The Flaming Lips
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Warner Bros., 2002
Written by Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd, Michael Ivins, and Dave Fridmann

---

Remember what it was like when you were a kid? A summer’s day felt like it could stretch out forever, and, hey, maybe days did back then. After all, time is an inexhaustible resource when you have no responsibility except having fun with your friends. Back then, if you bothered to think about the future at all, you imagined you could be anything when you grew up because your potential was just as infinite as your youth. You would do it all one day, see it all, have it all.

Then, reality caught up with you.

It didn’t happen all at once. It was gradual-like. A slow erosion of the child you were, the one who dreamed as unconsciously as they breathed, until only a blurry memory of them remained. Decisions compounded, most becoming regrets in hindsight. Some became things to resent or even grow bitter about. In other words, angry. And when you realized this is what it was like for your parents, you got angry at them, too, because they didn’t tell you the truth about what it was really going to be like. They fed you some Santa Claus-grade bullshit about how if you worked hard, you could have a better life than they did. You could have the nice car and the big house. You could take all the vacations they didn’t get to take you on. You could even retire early to the lunar colony that would be founded in a decade, two at the most. Don’t hate them for it. They lied to you to protect you, just like their parents did to them. It’s how we make sure everyone keeps showing up at work every day, trading moments from our lives to help our dreams come true for somebody else. Hey, did you hear Denise in payroll died last night? Goddamn drunk driver plowed into her going 60 — she didn’t even see it coming.

Stop pretending like it’s not going to happen to you, too. You and every single person you’ve ever loved is going to die; maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon enough. Because no one gets out of here alive, as Jim Morrison once sang — not even the billionaire pricks who think hoarding enough money to live 100,000 lifetimes will somehow make this truth more bearable. We can try to cling to heavenly fantasies or delusions about accomplishments and legacies that might outlive us — hell, we can slap our names on towers to try to buy some kind of immortality — but it won’t matter because your soul is going vacate this realm whether you like it or not, pal. You’ll be dead, and what does your corpse have to show for it that makes up for all the time you spent here accumulating things rather than building relationships, seeking out meaningful experiences, and creating something beautiful or at least adding a modicum of it to others’ lives?

Most of us have 80 years at best, and yet we die filled with disappointments and regrets over what we didn’t accomplish with that time. But be honest here — what would you do with another hundred years, or even a thousand more anyway? More of the same unless you stop acting like you have another hundred or even a thousand more years. The future is a terrible place to get lost in. Life’s real value is in this moment, right here — in the embrace of someone you love, in the laughter of a dear friend, in the gratitude you inspire in another’s eyes — not the potential for tomorrows and afterlives that might never come.

“Do You Realize??” is a song that knows all this. It also knows you know all this and, despite that, you’re still going to squander your time here. It’s okay, we all do, so don’t beat yourself up too much about it. But maybe, just maybe, you can stop what you’re doing right now, go outside, and watch the evening sky light on fire as the sun sinks into the horizon. Yeah, it’s just an illusion. The sun doesn’t actually go down; the Earth is just rotating on its axis and all you’re doing is sliding into night with billions of other people. But it’s beautiful all the same, and that’s pretty fucking amazing, isn’t it?

---

One, two, three, four

Do you realize
That you have the most beautiful face?
Do you realize
We're floating in space?
Do you realize
That happiness makes you cry?
Do you realize
That everyone you know someday will die?

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes
Let them know you realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do you realize?
Ah-ah-ah

Do you realize
That everyone you know someday will die?

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes
Let them know you realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun doesn't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Do you realize
That you have the most beautiful face?
Do you realize?

---

You can listen to The Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize??” at Spotify or watch its official video below. If possible, seek out a physical copy of the album to support the artists rather than streaming services that unfairly compensate them.

Afterward, listen to this episode of the podcast Song Exploder to learn more about how the song came to be.

---

If this article added anything to your life but you’re not up for a paid subscription, consider buying me a “coffee” so I can keep as much of this newsletter free as possible for the dreamers who couldn’t afford it otherwise.

---

If you enjoyed this particular article, these other three might also prove of interest to you: