Josephine the Songstress

There's a certain ever present, not to be liquidated childishness that permeates our folk; this exists in stark contradiction to that which we hold as being our best trait: our practical matter-of-factness and considerable know-how which rises above all deceit. We often act in ways that are totally and utterly ridiculous and, indeed, precisely like children we do things that are crazy, letting loose with our assets in a manner that is bereft of all rationality, prodigious in our celebrations, partaking in a light-headed frivolousness that is divorced from all sensibility, and often enough all simply for the sake of some small token of fun, so much do we love having our small amusements. And even though, naturally, the extent of our power of having such childish joys is no longer as fulfilling as is the case with children, all the same it is certain that there's yet a bit of this that remains. Isn't it, perhaps, isn't it just this childishness of our folk from which Josephine, too, is profiting? But our folk isn't only childish, to a certain extent we also age prematurely, childhood and old age mix themselves differently with us than by others. We don't have any youth, we jump right away into maturity and, then, we remain grown-ups for too long and as a consequence to this there's a broad shadow of a certain tiredness and a sort of hopelessness that colors our essential nature, a nature that as a whole is otherwise so tenacious and permeated by hope, strong hope. This, no doubt, this is related to why we're so disinclined toward music-we're too old for music, so much excitement, so much passion doesn't sit well with our heaviness; with a wink our tired constitutions part ways from the music lovers, we've pulled ourselves back and find our content-ment in whistling-a bit of whistling now and then, this is what is right for us. And who knows as to whether, even yet, whether there might still be some talent for music that lurks within us... if there should be such the character of our folk would have to suppress it, we would never allow its development within our midst. On the other hand Josephine can go ahead and do what she pleases, whether it's whistling or if it should be singing or whatever she might want to name it-call it what you will, this doesn't disturb us, rather this is just what we need, we're quite able to carry this along -if there should be something of music within all of this, well, it has been reduced to a certain minimum, there have been allowances made for keeping up with a certain amount of our musical tradition, just as long as this doesn't have any real impact upon us, nothing that might be a burden and weigh us down. But Josephine brings to us, a folk that is tuned in this manner, something more.