Transcendentalism (My Transcendental Song)

Transcendentalism

This week, we were asked to find a song that expressed transcendental ideas. I picked the song "The Bare Necessities" from "The Jungle Book". In this song, Baloo is telling Mowgli about the things that are needed in life and how to live a trouble free, easy and happy life.

 

I connected this song to many quotes. I picked 2 quotes from Emerson's "Nature". The first quote says "The sun illuminates the eye if the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood." Baloo acts like a child in this song and we can see he really appreciates nature ("I mean the bare necessities, Old Mother Nature's recipes"). In the video, he is very playful, childlike and happy. He seems very carefree in nature like Emerson's quote; "no disgrace, no calamity".

 

Towards the end of the song, Baloo says 

"And don't spend your time lookin' around
For something you want that can't be found
When you find out you can live without it
And go along not thinkin' about it
I'll tell you something true
The bare necessities of life will come to you"

These lines reflect Thoreau's 'Economy'. Walden says "the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day". Baloo is basically saying the same thing. We shouldn't spend all our time looking around and working hard. The bare necessities of life will come to you so don't spend all your time working hard or else you will not be able to enjoy your life.

 

In 'Economy', Thoreau also says "the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meagre life than the poor". Baloo wants to live a simple life with only "the bare necessities" just like Thoreau. They both believe that man only needs the simplest and most needed things to be happy and they are happy in the forest.