“Folly is joy to him that is destitute of wisdom."

There's a song I remember from my childhood. I learned it when I was about eleven. My cousin Christopher played it on the guitar, and the rest of us sang along. It's a catchy chorus and you may even know this tune, especially if you are older than I am, for it was popular a little before "my time,: in the 60's. It' s called, Those Were the Days.

The chorus to the song is, “Those were the day’s my friends, we thought they’d never end, we’d sing and dance, forever and a day… We lived the life we choose we’ d fight and never loose; those were the days-- oh yes, those were the days! La-la-la-la-la-la…”

This song was originally a Lithuanian folk tune called Long Journeys that had been rewritten and sung by a young woman named Mary Hopkins. It was so popular in it's day that that it remained the number two US favorite on the pop music charts for four weeks! The song began, “Once upon a time there was a tavern…where we used to have a drink or two…” It's considered a folk song, because it tells a story.

The story of the folksong is told from the perspective of one of the youths, which has now aged. The years have passed. Friends have gone their separate ways and now the old person telling the song is at a loss for the days of youth, when life was more fun and exciting. She reminisces how they used to dance, fight, drink alcohol and do whatever they pleased, and it was a joy to their hearts, and she laments that the years have sadly passed. Her friends have all left her and have gone their separate ways, and the now grown youth finds herself revisiting the tavern.

As she laments her now tragic and lonely life and for a brief sobering moment, she sees a reflection in her drinking glass. Lo and behold! It’s the face of an old and lonely person, someone who now thinks that life has passed them by, and she would hate to admit it, but the person she sees is herself.

In her moment of despair, and to her pleasant surprise, a familiar voice calls her name, and she happily discovers that it’s her old friend. She and her old friend indulge in more drunkenness together, and the song wistfully ends as she joyfully and with great gusto sings, “Oh my friend, we're older but no wiser…for in our hearts the dreams are still the same.

La-la-la-la,lala, La-la-la-la,lala., those were the days, oh yes those were the days.”

It’s the kind of song that makes Proverbs 18:2, ring true when it says, “A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.”

And then there's Proverbs 15:21: “Folly is joy to him that is destitute of wisdom."