“A Beautiful Life” by Christopher
Christopher is a singer from Denmark with a discography dating back to 2012 and a filmography which commenced shortly after that. By the looks of things, up until this year said filmography consisted primarily, if not wholly of the music star appearing as himself on various TV shows, which, according to Wikipedia, he hasn’t done since 2016.
But that said, Christopher was able to land the main role on a full-length Netflix film, A Beautiful Life, which had its general premiere on 1 June 2023, thus marking his first lead-acting job. So this song represents the title piece from that outing’s soundtrack.
Lyrics of “A Beautiful Life”
It would appear that the main plot of A Beautiful Life revolves around a simple fisherman turned pop star. But that is not what the lyrics of this song, despite being the title track of the movie, are about.
Rather what they represent, most simply explained, is the vocalist’s perception of parenthood as he goes through the different stages of this endeavor, i.e. from an expectant parent, to having a child, to said child coming of age and setting out on her own. And the term “beautiful life” serves a role in all three stages.
As presented from the onset, the vocalist obviously wasn’t expecting his lady to get pregnant. But such did transpire, so then they were faced with the prospect of having a child.
Furthermore, Christopher doesn’t come off as the aborting type. So even though he is not prepared, or, more to the point, doesn’t want the responsibility of fatherhood, he decides to take it on nonetheless.
Or as the singer puts forth in harping back to that time, he’s “way too young” to be raising a child.
Reading in-between the lines, this is Christopher’s way of saying that he’s not ready to give up the carefreeness of youth in the name of becoming a father. He even goes on to state that he “sure feels like dying” now being faced with this responsibility. So the way he sees it, the “beautiful life” he’s enjoying is now over.
“It feels like my life is over
Feels like my future’s crushed
And I’m gonna miss the times when
It was just the two of us
I don’t ever want to let go
Of everything that I love
I sure feels like dying
Saying goodbye
To my beautiful life”
Then, the lyrics fast forward a few years, to when the child is at least old enough to speak. She has become an intrinsic part of the vocalist’s life. And to make a long story short, now the situation has now become such that he cannot imagine being without her.
Indeed, Christopher is already ruing the day when she’ll be old enough to leave home. In other words, now it is she, the vocalist’s daughter, who has come to define his “beautiful life”.
The last portion of the song witnesses the daughter moving out. And the singer is admittedly “crushed”, knowing that now, in her absence, life at home will not be edifying as it was before. So once again, he finds himself “saying goodbye to (his) beautiful life”. And the irony of the situation, of course, is that Christopher went from perceiving his child as a curse to her coming to personify all that is lovely in his life.
But the song does end on a positive note, in a manner of interpretation. That is to say that the outro does obviously imply that, after the daughter has moved out, the vocalist’s wife has become pregnant once again. So it’s as if Christopher’s sorrow is about to be turned into joy through the miracle of childbirth yet again.
In Conclusion
Conclusively, there are various ways of understanding the main message behind this piece, if one is even intended. For example, this track can be somewhat loosely taken as a pro-life song. Or relatedly, it may be indicative of how childbirth, instead of being something that’s perceived as taking the joy out of youth, is rather part of an individual’s natural progression, so to speak.
That is to say that the things that make you happy earlier in life are different from those which bring a smile to your face as a parent. But this is something that the vocalist didn’t understand or appreciate until going through it himself.
This is an interesting take on the meaning of the song that I didn’t come away with. I thought the defining moment of the film was his deciding to sing a different song, a very personal song, to sing directly to his pregnant Lily. She had said in the movie that her own father had never sung a song to her, for her, before he committed suicide. So I think he’s interweaving a song to her about his feelings about having and raising a child with her with a tribute to her pain and loss from her father never singing a song to her before he died. I think that duality in the song’s lyrics is what makes it so moving.