The Hemingway Hero

As I look back over previous posts I have written over the years with my analysis of English Romantics, American Modernists... I see one that I tend to ignore- Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway is one of the towering figures of American literature — a writer whose name carries as much legend as literature. He lived boldly and wrote sparingly, crafting stories of war, loss, courage, and what he famously called “grace under pressure.” His prose was stripped down, almost skeletal, built on the belief that the deepest truths lie beneath the surface — the “iceberg” unseen.

If you have never read his style- it is simple rhythm... and for readers who like figurative language, it may seem... bland?

And yet, for all his influence, I have always felt a certain distance from him. While I admire the discipline of his style and understand the archetype of the “Hemingway hero,” it sometimes seems that the mythology of the man — the war correspondent, the bullfighter’s companion, the fisherman in Cuban waters — looms larger than the stories themselves.

What haunts me most is the tragic culmination of his life. In one of his early stories, a young boy asks about suicide, and the answer is chillingly restrained — as if even despair must be handled quietly. Years later, Hemingway himself would die by his own hand. The man who wrote about endurance and stoicism ultimately reached the place where, perhaps, he could not “stand it anymore.”

Hemingway’s work wrestles with strength, but it also reveals the cost of it. His characters stand in the wind — wounded, restrained, dignified — but often without assurance that standing will save them. That tension between courage and collapse may be the truest thing about him.

This song had an original version that I posted 2 years ago, but I didn't like it. I pushed Hemingway lines too hard and it had the activity it deserved... none. LOL.

So I took time this past weekend to pick up some Hemingway, read some of his better known passages and re-did the song. The changes I made really improved what I was driving at- by the way, it is stuff I like even if no one else does.

I send it out into digital space wondering if there are any classic literature nerds left..... we are definitely headed to extinction in this new age. I just hope the ideas stay alive.

Click on the title to hear:

Standing in the Wind

(a tribute to the Hemingway Hero)

Verse 1
In the fall, the war was there,
We walked away, wounds laid bare.
Strength is forged in quiet flame,
Through loss and pride, we played the game.

Verse 2
“The world breaks all,” the old man said,
“Some rise strong, and some just bled.”
Through the dusk, the hero stands,
"Grace under pressure", trembling hands.

Chorus

Let the wind come — we won’t bow.
I may break us — not us now.
Scars don’t mean that we give in,
They’re proof we stood in the wind.

Let us stand in the wind

Verse 3
A quiet room at 2 a.m.,
The walls don’t hide what’s caving in.
Medals rest beside the bed,
But ghosts still speak of things unsaid.

The clock ticks like a distant drum,
Each second asks what we’ve become.
Scars don’t shine in silver light —
They ache the most when it’s this quiet.

Bridge 

I almost laid my purpose down,
Almost let the silence drown.
But something in me still won’t bend —
A quiet voice that says, “Stand.”

Chorus

Let the wind come — we won’t bow.
It may break us — not us now.
Every scar beneath our skin
Says we stood in the wind.

We stood…
We stood in the wind.