Theme Song(s)

Both of my parents love music- and both know how to listen to it.  One of my greatest inheritances has to be this love and this knowledge that they passed on to me.  Without a doubt my taste wanders all over the place- old and new, soft and hard, classical and combative.  I do like to consider myself an equal opportunity listener...


Even though someone once accused me of having dramatic- or was it depressing?- taste in music.  He is not wrong.  Probably on either front.  But what I love most is music- lyric, songs, tunes, beats, whatever- that hits like battering ram.

Music- lyric, songs, tunes, beats, whatever- that is anthemic.

We all have theme songs (I must have tens of dozens of them on my own already),  if we allow ourselves to remember the moments they define- that song that summer; that song that played on the radio at that moment; that song that makes you cry every time; that song that you play in your mind when big things are or were happening.  Every theme song in my life has been something big and strong or wild or desperate.

I have had three songs playing to death over the past week and a half or two.  One I dig just because it is so bloody dramatic- big voice, big message, big moment.  And it is not a little depressing if you listen closely.  How could I not love it?!?

The other two are slowly becoming themes.  They are becoming big-time themes.

One, Ends of the Earth, is featured in a commercial for something- I'm not even sure what at this point.  It has a decently catchy chorus, nice hook.  But Hell, listen to the rest of it, and it is the theme for this blog- for what I am doing here… here on this earth, here in this blog.  Every single word I write, every trip I take, is in this song.  And yes, it is worth giving you the lyrics:

Oh there's a river that winds on forever

I'm gonna see where it leads

Oh, there's a mountain that no man has mounted

I'm gonna stand on the peak

Out there's a land that time don't command

Wanna be the first to arrive

No time for ponderin' why I'm a-wanderin' 

On while we're both still alive

To the ends of the earth, would you follow me

There's a world that was meant for our eyes to see

To the ends of the earth, would you follow me

If you won't, I must say my goodbyes to thee

Oh there's an island where all things are silent

I'm gonna whistle a tune

Oh there's a desert that size can't be measured

I'm gonna count all the dunes

Out there's a world that calls for me, girl

Headin' out into the unknown

Wayfaring strangers and all kinds of dangers

Please don't say I'm going alone

To the ends of the earth, would you follow me

There's a world that was meant for our eyes to see 

To the ends of the earth, would you follow me

If you won't, I must say my goodbyes to thee

I was a-read to die for you, baby

Doesn't mean I'm ready to stay

What good is livin' a life you've been given

If all you do is stand in one place

I'm on a river that winds on forever

Follow 'til I get where I'm goin'

Maybe I'm headin' to die but I'm still gonna try

I guess I'm goin' alone.

I literally gush with understanding; I bleed from it, I burst with understanding; this song is my wanderlust set to music and a howling honesty that tears at my heart that I try so often to simultaneously expose and protect.  I want to sail that river and climb that mountain and be, without time, in that desert.  I want to trust someone else to come with me- to hold my hand, fingers linked as we approach the end of the earth- and put myself out in the vastness with a partner in crime… but….  I hear it and I unhinge myself long enough to be overwhelmed: he gets it.  Look at this big world.  Look at our small selves.  Why the hell wouldn't we wander all over the place, and see the sights, feel the feelings, interpret the expanse… and then write about the life that we are living out there?

And sometimes you find the right Huckleberry to be on your raft down the river with you- and sometimes you're goin' alone.

I get it all.  I live it all.  I'm unabashedly where he is, or where he is going.

Goddamn.

Next up we have Hozier's Work Song.  This has come to refine a definition of love that has long been kicking around my brain.   It's a song, as I stated a couple of posts ago, that I would dance to.  I have danced to it, alone, in my kitchen while I was packing my apartment up north.   So that's part one: the dancing part.

Part two is what he is actually saying (errrr…singing).  No, this time you won't get the whole song, just the chorus- although the whole song is forking amazing-

When 

my 

time comes around 

lay me gently in the cold 

dark earth

No grave can hold my body down-

I'll crawl home to her

And that is it- the love that I want but cannot have because it does not exist.   Yes, it is morbid and odd and not a little off-putting to consider a dead lover coming back to you, especially covered in his own grave.  But a love that defies death?  A love that repeats itself over lifetimes to fulfill the pull of two spirits which are supposed to be one?  A love that makes words real?  Now that is something else entirely.

That's a theme song.

And until next time, I do hope you find some of your own.

I Will Grind His Bones* (Redux)

*To 

Make

My 

Bread.. 

This afternoon I got my eighth tattoo.  And short of me explaining it verbatim, it makes no sense.  Not a lick of sense, not to a single soul but own.  And even with an explanation, I'm not entirely sure anyone else would understand the value in it.  So on that topic, I stay quiet. 

But it never works the way I anticipate, this brain of my mine; these explanations of mine.  Because as the needle bit into my skin, ink staining nearly to the bone, I began to think about the nature of the beast.  

I feel fairly confident that- unless you have never met me or have only just begun to read this blog- almost everyone knows that I hate my body.  I hate it.  It does not matter if it is too thin or not too thin, there's no middle ground on this battle ground.  I constantly and consummately hate it.  I would give it up in a merry heartbeat.  I would hand it over in a split second, without so much as a glance back.  

And on that artist's table, laying on my side, giggling as tattoo gun knicked into the fleshy part of my tummy… I thought more about the nature of things.  Because it's not my body.  It never has been. 

It's my brain.  

It's my brain that revolts; my brain that implodes, explodes; it's my brain that hauls my body along with it wherever it goes.  And- also not a shocker- my brain is messed up.  Maybe not as much as others', but maybe also more than many's.

I have a hurt head.   

I have a hurt heart, too.  

And my body bends to the will of both. 

And until it doesn't…

Until then. 

A Sort Of Two-Fer

The sort of twofer…

Thoughts on moving, Obsessions that help to quiet the thoughts on moving.

Tonight is my last night in New England for this season.  It is pissing down rain- and I am hauling boxes out of my apartment into my car, listening to my dog whine, yelp, and puppy-weep at the top of his puppy lungs.

And in the midst of all of this… I'm trying so hard not to think about what is actually happening.  Another move.  Another upheaval just as my little world settles down.  Another series of bags packed and then packed into the back of the Jeep- it's a good thing I'm something of a fiend for Tetris otherwise my life would never never never work.

I am trying hard not to think of all of the things I am leaving behind- again.  I am trying hard not to think of how this place, no matter how hard I try to resist, heals me every time.  Every single time I am sick to death with the world, with my world, I retreat to northern New England.  So that I can breathe; so that I can sit with the me that is not me or maybe me- but really the me that I am most unfamiliar with- the comfortable one.  (I am trying hard not to think of the grammatical issues with my previous sentence- some things can't be helped).

This album helps heaps.  I downloaded it today, on a whim.  Andrew Hozier-Byrne has nailed what I like the call 'The Suzannah.'  It's straight blues and sex and wonder.  Homeskillet is an Irishman who sings like he's been through it.  Considering it feels like I've been through it lately… (Listen to 'Sedated' and 'Work Song' back to back.  Brilliant, bold, the series of songs that you dance to- sometimes with yourself, sometimes with someone else- in the kitchen, barefoot).

This song helps for sure.  It erupts with poignancy, sadness, and just a tiny frail inch of resignation.  Open Hands, indeed.

I am, of course, using the trusty MacBook Pro Chooks to watch all manner of horrid television on Hulu.

I am thinking of my next tattoo, of what it will only ever mean to me.

I am thinking of tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Until Then-

Go on and drift away..