Amy Krouse Rosenthal turns 'We're here because we're here' into hope for a depressed John at her reading (2005)
story · status: told 3× · last event: mentioned (2026-02-15)
In 2005 Amy Krouse Rosenthal invited a depressed John to one of her readings, where she turned the soldiers' song 'We're here because we're here' into a song of hope. John came back to the story often, including in his yearly Auld Lang Syne review.
Origin known from later mentions
2005 in the title is when this began; it first appears in the videos read here in 2016, so the earlier part is known only from what is said later.
Told alongside: John's 8/8/08 event in Chicago: library talk, Grant Park and The Bean (2008)
About: Amy Krouse Rosenthal
| date | event | what | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-08-02 | told | That evening Amy hosted The Beckoning of Lovely at the Bean in Millennium Park; what stuck with John most was singing an old soldiers' song to Auld Lang Syne with hundreds of people. | Beckoning Lovely 00:01:40 |
| 2017-11-03 (happened 2005) | told | John tells an Amy story from his tour: in 2005 Amy, a children's book writer, memoirist and professional seeker of wonder, invited him to one of her readings. | Because We're Here 00:00:38 |
| 2020-04-28 | mentioned | John says Amy Krouse Rosenthal beckoned so much lovely into the world and helped him and many others sing and hope that we're here because we're here. | get your game on 00:03:24 |
| 2020-12-31 | retold | In public appearances Amy would ask audiences to sing the soldiers' recursive lament with her, transforming it without changing the tune or words. · also in: We're here because were here., John's Review of Auld Lang Syne | Auld Lang Syne: The Anthropocene Reviewed 00:18:46 |
| 2026-02-15 | mentioned | Chat's "we're here because we're here because we're here" always makes John emotional, as it makes him think of his great friend Amy Krouse Rosenthal. | Project for Awesome 2026 part 5! 04:27:41 |
What is said about it
8 statements, by date (the events above are the turns of the thread; these are the details).
- 2017-11-03 · Because We're Here — John says he was then in a period of intense unwellness, losing himself to intrusive thought spirals, with a chest-crushing depression: nothing enjoyable, struggling to get out of bed. (hedged) — 00:00:47
- 2017-11-03 · Because We're Here — John says that depression was at once absolutely excruciating and completely boring. — 00:01:02
- 2017-11-03 · Because We're Here — Susan Sontag (quoted): John cites Susan Sontag: depression is melancholy minus its charms. — 00:01:06
- 2017-11-03 · Because We're Here — John says he hates audience participation: sometimes the audience doesn't deliver, and he paid to be entertained, not to be part of the entertainment. (playful) — 00:01:21
- 2017-11-03 · Because We're Here — John relates Amy's account that in World War I British soldiers, not understanding why they had to fight and die for tiny patches of ground, sang 'We're here because we're here' to Auld Lang Syne. — 00:01:37
- 2017-11-03 · Because We're Here — John calls the song a recursive lament acknowledging there was no why, that life in the trenches was meaninglessness all the way down. — 00:01:57
- 2017-11-03 · Because We're Here — John says that night Amy transformed the song for him without changing its words: we were here together, never really alone, part of a vast, deeply interconnected us. — 00:02:05
- 2017-11-03 · Because We're Here — John says we are here, if only for a while; maybe we'll never know why we are here, but we can still proclaim in hope that we are here. (hedged) — 00:02:23 · also in: Auld Lang Syne: The Anthropocene Reviewed, We're here because were here., John's Review of Auld Lang Syne