Sitting around listening to some music. I am feeling inspired by Lindsay’s Daughter’s roommate: who is listening to an album per day, and taking requests. Lindsay and I provided some options. GnR: Appetite, Iron Maiden: Powerslave, Judas Priest: Screaming for Vengeance, Tool: Lateralus, Black Sabbath: Black Sabbath, Metallica: Master of Puppets and Slayer: Seasons in the Abyss were my metal album choices for the week we were allotted. Lindsay voted out Tool and Sabbath and listed the Cult: Pure Cult, Alice in Chains: Dirt, Bruce Springsteen, The Tragically Hip, and Gaslight anthem. She also picked Ride the Lightening over Puppets. Tough hill to die on there, they are both perfect. Flip a coin.
The Bruce Springsteen choice got me thinking about what album I would choose for him, then my thoughts drifted to some other 70s rock that would make a good candidate for Album of the Day and David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust came to mind. That album is damn near perfect, so I thought that I would give it a spin. Of course I don’t have the album, we have no Turntable, wish I did, along with a top notch speaker and amp system. Alas, no such luck, but I do have good head phones and some Music apps. Got caught up right out of the gate. I have not listened to Five Years since my Diagnosis, it hit me like a brick. Straight up shot to the guts. What a song, I have always loved it, man it had me almost in tears this time. Very close indeed.
Pushing through the market square
So many mothers sighing
News had just come over
We had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet
Then I knew he was not lying.
Man this opening stanza has always had power. The thought of actually absorbing this about the world is intense, actually absorbing it about yourself is tough as well. Five years sounds good to me, that would be a good start. Hell any firm date would work for me. It's the not knowing that really makes it tough. I'm sure time would run out, no matter how much I had, but it would be nice to have a little more clarity. Right now my hope is that the due date is too far out to calculate now. Let's go with that.
I heard telephones, opera house, favorite melodies
I saw boys, toys, electric irons and TVs
My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store everything in there
And all the fat, skinny people
And all the tall, short people
And all the nobody people
And all the somebody people
I never thought I’d need so many people.
Holy Shit, I feel you David, man that warehouse can be a dangerous one to walk through. It is all stacked so precariously I worry that whole banks of boxes might fall on me at any time. What a line; What a stanza; What a song writer. Why does the warehouse of one’s mind have to always be so fucking plugged up.
A girl my age went off her head
Hit some tiny children
If the Black hadn’t have pulled her off
I think she would have killed them
A soldier with a broken arm
Fixed his stare to the wheels of a Cadillac
A cop knelt and kissed the feet of a priest
And a queer threw up at the sight of that
I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlor
Drinking milk shakes cold and long
Smiling and waving and looking so fine
Don’t think you knew you were in this song
And it was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor
And I thought of ma and I wanted to get back there
Your face, your race, the way that you talk
I kiss you, you’re beautiful I want you to walk.
Whoever the song is addressed to is my hero: “I think I saw you…Don’t think you knew you were in this song.” I love that image of the happy and alive person dancing away and drinking milk shakes. Good for you, that is the right response to being in this song, but damn it is a hard role to play. But you hero, you fucking magical hero, you go on dancing and drinking, I’m just going to stand over here in the shadows, I might have something in my eye. Once I get it out I am going to work on the strength it takes to face the end with joy like that. That is a super power.
We’ve got five years, stuck on my eyes
Five Years, What a surprise
We’ve got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, that’s all we’ve got.
Hell, five years sounds like a lot. I hope I have five years. Man my brain hurts a lot too David. I love that in life he lived this song a bit at the end. His last album seems like the character in the ice cream shop. Putting out the last of the depths of his mind. Giving the world one last tour of his warehouse and walking away empty. That is what I am trying to do. Good on ya David, you’re a champ. I hope someone out there appreciates my efforts as well. If not, too bad, I will go down thinking someone did. True or false, that is what I will close my eyes to.
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