Music Reviews: It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday

The  song "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday" was specifically written for the Motown movie Cooley High and presumably for the funeral scene in which it was used.

Although the world does not look kindly upon men crying I have always felt/joked that any man who bawls upon hearing this song gets a pass. 

The husband-wife songwriting duo of Freddie Perren and Christine Yarian Perren wrote this song. Plenty of people have recorded the song, most famously Boyz II Men, but I still think the film version, sung by G.C. Cameron, is the absolute definitive version, bar none. 

As a man of a certain age I am at the point where many of my older relatives have passed on. To me this song expresses the loss of loved ones while acknowledging that no matter what, life continues. 

The older generation must leave eventually. Of course in the film it's not a member of the older generation who dies but a peer, which makes it more tragic. But the world keeps turning. I remember my Dad singing this song. This is a simple song. Sometimes simple is best.

How do I say goodbye to what we had?

The good times that made us laugh

Outweigh the bad.

I thought we'd get to see forever

But forever's gone away

It's so hard to say

goodbye to yesterday.

I don't know where this road

Is going to lead

All I know is where we've been

And what we've been through.

If it gets me to tomorrow

I hope it's worth all the pain

It's so hard to say

goodbye to yesterday.

And I'll take with me the memories

To be my sunshine after the rain

It's so hard to say

goodbye to yesterday.