the beautiful instability of “For Forever”
(This is a rewrite of an old post! The old one was spread over a series of reblogs, so I thought I’d just consolidate it all in one place.)
tw: multiple suicide mentions.
“For Forever” is a really messed up title for a song that’s actually about a suicide attempt.
From the haunting opening chords to the deceptively simple lyrics, I’ve always thought there was something eerie and unsettling about the song. I slowly began to understand why when I realized the two meanings nestled of the title. Perhaps “For Forever” isn’t just Evan’s flight of fantasy. I’d like to suggest that it is actually a rather accurate–though metaphorical–description of Evan’s suicide attempt.
As we find out later in the show, the early summer day Evan is describing is actually the day he attempted suicide. And just beneath the surface, the song continually acknowledges that fact.
Let’s start by taking a look at this brilliant Genius annotation by AmityRavenclawElf:
“All we see is sky for forever
We let the world pass by for forever
Feels like we could go on for forever this way”
In many ways, Dear Evan Hansen is a play about duality. The axis of the story is the juxtaposition of Evan and Connor. As AmityRavenclawElf’s annotation reveals, the language of “For Forever” works in a similar mode of duality.
The key words in the song are terribly ambivalent: they are each so full of beauty and life, but also so close to death. Each ostensibly positive word also contains its opposite, just as “go on” contains the echo of “die.”
Let’s look more closely at the language.
“Wondering how the world might look from up so high”
Gorgeous, thrilling language–but isn’t the language of light and watching from on high also idiomatic of death?
From far across the yellow field I hear him calling, “Follow me”
Isn’t yellow a strange color choice? I don’t intuitively think of fields as being yellow. But it’s an incredible descriptor because yellow evokes sunlight (and thus life), but it also indicates sickness and decay.
And in the art history world, the image of the yellow field is almost always a reference to Van Gogh’s painting Wheatfield with Crows, which is often cited to be his last painting before he purportedly committed suicide. It is also often pictured as the site where his suicide took place.
Let’s go back to the broader meaning of the line. Evan is imagining Connor calling him from faraway, from the other side. Evan is picturing someone who committed suicide beckoning him to follow in their footsteps.
Evan is imagining someone who committed suicide leading him up the tree where he makes his own attempt.
No wonder the song feels so unsettling. The song itself is literally unsettled, constantly wobbling between two radically different meanings.
And just as the song holds the deepest sadness imaginable, it also holds such life.
Though “You Will Be Found” is the musical’s “anthem,” “For Forever” is the motif that keeps coming back–it’s the finale, after all! But it’s a little different at the end.
“All I see is sky for forever”
Referencing Genius again:
This signals to us that the meaning of this song has been subverted. Its duality has resolved itself and settled into a single meaning. And Evan’s terrible identification with Connor has ended. The mirroring of the two characters–the thread that has kept the story together–has finally unravelled.
“For Forever” is no longer about death. It is no longer about Connor.
It’s about Evan this time. “For Forever” is now about life.
Bonus: in the last scene of the musical, Evan meets Zoe again in the orchard where saplings are growing. Guess what Zoe means in Greek?
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