"It Isn't Gonna Be That Way"

Dedicated to Joy Poulard Cruz

I came upon a song a couple weeks ago that has been haunting me ever since. I’ve played it at least twenty times after Spotify’s algorithm loaded it into a playlist “just for me.”

It’s a gem from an otherwise forgotten singer-songwriter whose disappointing career makes this lyric all the more surprising and tragic for its emotional depth and lyrical incisiveness. Stevie Forbert’s “It Isn’t Gonna Be That Way” is an almost completely forgotten and heart-rending folk-rock masterpiece. Give it a listen, then continue reading if you can.

If you’re moved to tears and still reading, then, like me, you’ve had ambition, ideals, ideas, and plans. And you’ve encountered signifiant disappointment, perhaps even arriving at despair. You’ve overcome every hurdle, surmounted every mountain, faced your demons down and soldiered on despite all.

And yet, and yet…life has defied your dreams; you’ve come through but haven’t arrived, at least not in a place that at all resembles what you’d hoped for, imagined, or expected.

Did you notice the perfectly timed and executed emphasis on the “g” in the first line of the first sung chorus: “But it isn’t ghonna be that way?” The pronunciation of that “g” is the germ of the song and an emblem of its central feeling and signification—both a laugh and a cry, the deepest sympathy from one who has been there, felt that, and yet must scorn, ever-so-slightly, such belief.

The lyric is all the more sorrowful and tragic because it applies to the singer as much or more than it does to anyone else. Because “Little Stevie Forbert” was gonna be “the new Bob Dylan”—yet he’s all but completely gone from public memory. Search the web and see what few traces remain of this soulful young man. Look at the boyish innocence of the face below, and listen again. If you’re like me, you will cry again—for Stevie, for hundreds of millions more like him, for yourself.

Why?

Because it isn’t gonna be that way—not for the singer, not for the dreamer, not for the left, not for the right, not for the seers, not for the sight. It isn’t gonna be that way.

There will be a way. It just won’t be your way. It won’t be your plan. It won’t be your doing. It won’t be your damned. And it won’t be at your command.

You socialists seeking that utopia you say is not utopia but is—because it isn’t gonna be that way.

You warriors seeking after social justice—it isn’t gonna be that way—because it isn’t your idea of justice that matters. It isn’t gonna be that way.

You Democrats impeaching your Satan—it isn’t gonna be that way, because you don’t know who Satan is.

I play along with Stevie—it isn’t gonna be that way.

All you who follow your own script, your own narrative, your own tale, who believe your own talk…well, it isn’t gonna be that way.

Sing it with me! And sing with the young sooth-sayer, Little Stevie Forbert:

You've traveled so far
The wind in your face
You're thinking you've found
The one special place
Where all your dreams
Will walk out in line
And follow the course
You've made in your mind

Hey, it isn't gonna be that way
It isn't gonna be, that way

I came on my own
And felt much like you
I thought I was king
And knew what to do
But everything burned
And fell from my hand
I had to turn back
Or build a new plan

‘Cause it isn't gonna be that way
It isn't gonna be, that way
No, it isn't gonna be that way
It isn't gonna be, that way

[Harmonica and Instrumental Bridge]
If I were a god
I'd give you a clue
This minute would crack
And I could go through
And walk out in time
Where no one has been
I'd come back to you
And tell what I'd seen

Oh, but it isn't gonna be that way
It isn't gonna be, that way

You'll just have to live
And see what you find
And take it from there
And follow the signs

Yeah, you think you can live
And dream your own fate
You think you can wish
And walk through the gate

Oh, it isn't gonna be that way
It isn't gonna be that way
And n-n-n-no
It isn't gonna be that way
It isn't gonna be-ah-e, that way
Oh, oh, oh, oh, no, ooh