What is Eternal?

Let me introduce you to a completely amazing rock opera called Beethoven's Last Night, by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. It's pretty much what it sounds like: Beethoven has finished writing his 10th Symphony, and is starting to die.

What is Eternal? by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra comes right when Beethoven is contemplating if his life's work is worth the damnation of his soul.

Ladies and Gents, I give you What is Eternal?

And here in the night
As I feel the Inferno
I stare in the dark
Thinking what is eternal

The man or the moment?
The act, or the reason?
These thoughts fill my head
As I contemplate treason.

Of dreams I have had
And dreams I have pondered
When late in the night
My mind it would wander


To things I have done
And then quickly regretted
While denying vices
My life had selected...

And I think what I've done
Or have yet to begin
And the man I've become
And the man that I've been



Now caught in a waltz
With the Eternal Dancer
I'm courted by Death
But Death isn't the answer
I say.

All I was
Meant to be
Could I
Suddenly
Just decide
Not a thought
Would survive?
Could it be
My life's worth
Ended there
With my birth?

If I could see someone
Who's been there before me
And traded his soul
For a moment of Glory

His penance or mercy
By spirits debated
While judged on a scale
That's been heavily weighted.

And what have I done?
Could there be such a sin
In this man I've become?
In this man that I've been?

Now calling to God
From this pit's very bottom
I pray He forgives
Every sin I've forgotten
This day!

And who would have thought
That my fate it would conjure
This twist in the road
On which I have wandered?


Each vision and dream now
Completely dismembered
To give one's whole life
And find nothing's
Remembered.

And what good is a life
That leaves nothing behind
Not a thought or a dream
That might echo in Time.


The years and the hours
The seconds and minutes
And everything that
My life has placed in it
Betrayed.
Betrayed.
Betrayed!

The things I have done
The places I've been
The cost of my dreams

The weight of my sins



And everything that
I've gathered in life
Could it be lost?
Could it be lost in this
Could it be lost in this
Night?


I heartily recommend the entire album. It's pure genius.

B