Monday, November 17, 2014

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.




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