Life is but a dream

Joan Didion, who's been writing a lot on mortality following the deaths of her daughter Quintana and her husband John Gregory Dunne, says of Row, Row, Row Your Boat – that ostensibly cheerful round sung by so many families on Sunday drives – that "the most terrifying verse I know is, 'Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.'"

I've always thought that: profoundly depressing because it's profound. Spot on, as utterly accurate as an arrow through the heart. More than depressing; it's desolating.