SOME SONGS DESERVE A SECOND, OR THIRD LISTEN

I was driving home from work a few weeks ago, listening to my music when a special song started to play.  As the song ended, I reached up and triggered the CD player in the car back a step to listen to the song again.  After the song began to come to a close, I once again clicked it back to listen to it again.  It came to me that I do this quite often and began to think about that.  I don't do that to every song that comes in the queue.  I then realized that there are certain songs that, when I hear them, one listen is not enough.  The songs ends too soon.  I began to take notice as to what songs effected me in this manner.  Usually the main reason I need to listen to a certain song more than once are the lyrics but the music itself plays a big part in what makes me listen two or three times.  I made a list in my mind of these songs and thought I might share with you a few of the songs that land somewhere deep in my mind to make me decide to listen again.

The song that started this whole thinking process was a song that I have loved since I was pre-teen.  It is Simon and Garfunkel's recording of Paul Simon's "I Am A Rock".  This song, as most of Paul Simon's compositions are, has a wonderful melody.  It is a beautiful song that starts with just Simon and his guitar then slowly builds in intensity until at the very end when it goes quiet and soft and the final few lyrics are sung with just the guitar once again.  It is the last track on the duo's "Sounds Of Silence" album and what a way to end an album that is mind provoking throughout.

The lyrics tell of a person who is a loner.  The words try to justify to himself why he is such and tries to convince him that he enjoys being that way.  It opens with a statement about where he finds himself at the time these thoughts creep into his mind:

A winter's day

In a deep and dark December

I am alone
Gazing from my window
To the streets below
On a freshly fallen, silent shroud of snow

A rather dark and bleak picture that tends to make a person do some deep thinking.  Then comes the chorus which states the self affirmation of the individual:

I am a rock
I am an island

A simple chorus.  It is only two short lines that are emphasized at the end of each statement that makes up a verse.  I am a rock. I am strong and can withstand anything the world throws at me.  I am an island. I am my own man, my own self and I go my own way.  I think for myself and am not a follower.  It is a powerful two lines that drive his thoughts home.

In between the restating of the chorus are lines that explain why he believes he is a rock, an island.

I've built walls
A fortress, steep and mighty
That none may penetrate
I have no need of friendship
Friendship causes pain
Its laughter and its loving I disdain

 I am a rock
I am an island

During the course of my life I have hid behind those self made walls.  It is difficult for people to get to know me.  I have spent years building them and over the last several years I have been trying to deconstruct them, to raze them though without much success.

Don't talk of love
Well, I've heard the words before
It's sleeping in my memory
I won't disturb the slumber
Of feelings that have died
If I never loved, I never would have cried

I have loved and lost at love before.  It does hurt.  I was lucky to find a lasting love when I met Barbara and it was good.  Three years ago in July I found myself losing love once again as Barbara passed away and once again, losing a love hurt.  This one almost crushed me.  I did cry.  I cried by myself in a darkened quiet house.  I still do every now and again.

I am a rock
I am an island

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room
Safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me

Ah, books and poetry.  Yes I do have my books and I have poetry.  Robert Frost's writings have brought out feelings in me as long as I have been reading it seems.  John Steinbeck effects me much in the same way.  Poems and novels full of life, meaning and lessons to be learned.  I revisit them often.  Then I also have my music whether I am playing it or listening.  Music comforts me.  I find music almost everywhere I listen.  A train rolling down the tracks behind Paul's Drive-in blowing it's whistle, well I guess they aren't whistles anymore.  Horns.  Still it is a wonderful sound.  Music is everywhere if you listen and pay attention.  I can get lost in the music and the words that I have at my disposal.  They do protect me from what is out there.  My house is my "womb".  It is where I feel safe and am comfortable.  Not a lot of people get into my house anymore.  It is sanctuary to me.  For an individual to get into that inner sanctum, I seem to require that I can trust you with my special place.

I am a rock
I am an island

And then .... and then quietly he tells himself why he feels he has to be a rock.  Why he has to be an island.  The last few lines are sung softly with just a few quiet acoustic guitar chords that are even softer than the voice as he reflects on how he has to see himself in life.

And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries 

I can't feel pain.  I can't afford to.  I will not cry for that would show the world too much of who I truly am, how I truly feel, how lonely I truly am.

Since I first heard this song I found that I saw a lot of myself in those words and thoughts.  As I grew older I could relate deeper with them.  When I hear that song, that wonderful beautiful song and I sing softly to myself along with the recording, I feel like I am that person and I am talking to myself.  For most people this song is not that high on the list of songs that people think of when someone mentions Paul Simon or Simon and Garfunkel.  It isn't "Bridge Over Troubled Water" or "The Sound Of Silence" but to me, it is probably one of the most honest songs that Paul Simon wrote.  And so I listen to it over, and over, and over ......

I almost feel like I could end this entry at this point.  It pretty much sums it up why I feel I have to listen to a song more than once.  However there are a few more songs that lose me in what they mean.

Warren Zevon.  That name may or may not be familiar to you.  He was a great pianist with a voice that is very distinctive in a Bob Dylan kind of way if you get my meaning. You might be familiar with his biggest selling song entitled "Werewolves Of London".  Yeah, that was the kind of songs he wrote for the most part.  As humorous and eclectic as his songwriting was, if you read between the lines, he always had a message in t here.  You had to search for that message pretty hard at times but the lessons were there.  He made quite a few appearances on The Letterman Show where he was able to reach people who otherwise never would hear many of his songs. His albums were not top sellers and not many of his songs cracked the top forty.  Then came 2002/2003 and his song writing became very retrospective.

In late 2002 Warren Zevon was diagnosed with Mesothelioma.  A cancer of the lungs.  Zevon was only 55 years old when diagnosed and that diagnoses would reach it's conclusion on September 7, 2003 when he was 56.  He decided to put out one more album.  The album titled "The Wind" was a work of passion.  His passion for life, poetry, music and love.  With this final chapter Zevon would bare his soul as he had never done before.  You did not have to read too deeply between the lines to get his message in these songs.  It is a beautiful album that is sad.  It is sad yet celebratory.  It is Warren looking back and looking forward and sharing what he sees and feels.

The song off of this swan song album is a message to his wife, friends and possibly his fans called "Keep Me In Your Heart For Awhile".  It is a song telling us he is dying and how he wants us to carry on after he is gone.  It really needs no explanation or interpretation.  It is clear what he is trying to say.  There is no word twisting or assimilation, just feelings straight from his gut and his heart.

Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath
Keep me in your heart for awhile

If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for awhile

When you get up in the morning and you see that crazy sun
Keep me in your heart for awhile

There's a train leaving nightly called "when all is said and done"
Keep me in your heart for awhile

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile

Sometimes when you're doing simple things
around the house
Maybe you'll think of me and smile

You know I'm tied to you like the buttons on
your blouse
Keep me in your heart for awhile

Hold me in your thoughts, take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view
When the winter comes keep the fires lit
And I will be right next to you

Engine driver's headed north to Pleasant Stream
Keep me in your heart for awhile

These wheels keep turning but they're running out
of steam
Keep me in your heart for awhile

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile

Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-li-li-lo
Keep me in your heart for awhile

Keep me in your heart for awhile 

I'll be honest with you.  This song always brings a lump to my throat.  It is difficult for me to sing along to.  Most times I start to sing, but then I just listen to Warren opening up his thoughts and his heart to the world.  What a special message to leave his loved ones and friends.  "The Wind" is Zevon's farewell and this song sums up the entirety of the album.  Often when I listen to this song my mind wanders to Barbara.  This is what she would want me to do.  I know that.  "If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less".  I can hear Barb saying that to me.  "Sometimes when you're doing simple things around the house Maybe you'll think of me and smile".  I can hear her saying that as well and I do think of her and smile.  

Warren Zevon is no longer here on this earth.  The words of his farewell will live on for a long time though.  The words say more then even Zevon could put into words.  I have the feeling that as he finished this song he still probably thought it doesn't say what he is feeling quite strong enough.  And so I listen to this song over, and over and over ......

Leonard Cohen also did a swan song album before his death and I highly recommend to all my readers to listen to it if you get the chance.  It is a short album recorded in his apartment from his favorite chair in his last days.  It is a short album but powerful.  He speaks of his impending death, his faith, old loves and things he did not understand.  The name of this last album is "You Want It Darker". I'll give you just a small taste from "You Want It Darker".  This a verse from the song "Treaty" on that album.  Maybe it will give you a sense of Cohen at the end.

I've seen you change the water into wine
I've seen you change it back to water, too
I sit at your table every night
I try but I just don't get high with you
I wish there was a treaty we could sign
I do not care who takes this bloody hill
I'm angry and I'm tired all the time
I wish there was a treaty, I wish there was a treaty
Between your love and mine

I think Zevon's swan song serves this purpose and I have a quite a few Cohen songs that get repeated depending on my mood.  The one that I think really catches me is called "The Tower Of Song".   In this song Cohen gives us a peek into the mind of a songwriter.  He gives insight into sacrifices made for the craft.

Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on
I'm just paying my rent every day
Oh in the Tower of Song

The tower of song.  Writers often isolate while they are working.  They have a special room or house away from all the distractions of the world so their creativity can flow.  When he wrote this song he had been writing for a long time.  He was starting to age.  He has lost friends either to his art or death.  He wants love but he is too busy to bother with it.  The rent?  Every song he writes while locked away in the tower.

I said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get?
Hank Williams hasn't answered yet
But I hear him coughing all night long
A hundred floors above me
In the Tower of Song 

This is one of my favorite verses in the song.  It suggests there in this tower, there is a hierarchy among the artists.  As great of a songwriter as Cohen was, he saw Hank Williams as ranking 100 floors above him.  That, my friends, is a humble man and that is what makes this verse, to me, so special.

I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden voice
And twenty-seven angels from the Great Beyond
They tied me to this table right here
In the Tower of Song

Again, his talent is not of his making.  It is a gift from God.  He felt blessed and grateful for this gift that came at such a price to him. He accepted the gift and paid the price.  That says a lot about who he was.

So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll
I'm very sorry, baby, doesn't look like me at all
I'm standing by the window where the light is strong
Ah they don't let a woman kill you
Not in the Tower of Song

Now you can say that I've grown bitter but of this you may be sure
The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor
And there's a mighty judgment coming, but I may be wrong
You see, you hear these funny voices
In the Tower of Song

I see you standing on the other side
I don't know how the river got so wide
I loved you baby, way back when
And all the bridges are burning that we might have crossed
But I feel so close to everything that we lost
We'll never, we'll never have to lose it again

These three verses spell out what that price was.  The sacrifice of losing loves many times.  The sorting out of the voices of creativity.  No woman can come between a songwriter and his songs.  In a way, the gift he was given was his true love I suppose.  It was what gave him pleasure.

Now I bid you farewell, I don't know when I'll be back
They're moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track
But you'll be hearing from me baby, long after I'm gone
I'll be speaking to you sweetly
From a window in the Tower of Song

Yeah my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on
I'm just paying my rent every day
Oh in the Tower of Song

And so the song ends.  Continuing to pay his rent in the tower creating songs and words until the day he died.  I think the reason this song connects with me is that need to create.   Now I am in no way saying I create as great as  Leonard Cohen did.  If Leonard Cohen thought that Hank Williams was a hundred floors above him, then Leonard Cohen is somewhere along the lines of an infinite number of floors above me.  But I do like to write.  I am not as talented with my writing as he was with his music, but it gives me pleasure.  I enjoy it.  I enjoy people reading my writing.  I feel like if I can contribute just a little something to someone's life, I may have accomplished something and so I listen to song over and over and over ....

Thinking about Hank Williams now since Mr. Cohen paid tribute to him in that last song.  Cohen was correct.  The world has produced some great songwriters over the centuries.  Some stand a little higher than others.  Gershwin, Carmichael, Rodgers and Hammerstein so many great songwriters that rank at the top not to mention the jazz and classical composers.  For my money, Hank Williams is right up there at the top with the best of them.  The lyrics that he writes are some of the most heart wrenching love songs ever written and the music that goes with those wonderful words, the melodies, is absolutely gorgeous.  Over the last 68 years since his death it seems like everyone in the music world has covered his songs and each time the song is beautiful.  Now that I think about it, it could be almost impossible to ruin a Williams song.  You can't help but find your soul being pulled into the songs whether listening or singing.  It grabs by the shirt collar and immerses you into the emotion that those songs carry with them.  My personal Hank tune and a song I consider one of the greatest popular songs ever written is "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry".  Like Warren Zevon's song discussed earlier, this masterpiece does not need to be thought about what he is trying to say.  It is straight in your face as most of his numbers are.  Hank didn't play games with words.  He wrote what he felt and did it in such a way that it speaks to everyone who gives the time to listen.  So my friends, Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry"

Hear that lonesome whippoorwill
He sounds too blue to fly
The midnight train is whining low
I'm so lonesome I could cry

I've never seen a night so long
When time goes crawling by
The moon just went behind the clouds
To hide its face and cry

Did you ever see a robin weep
When leaves began to die?
Like me, he's lost the will to live
I'm so lonesome I could cry

The silence of a falling star
Lights up a purple sky
And as I wonder where you are
I'm so lonesome I could cry 

It is not a long song.  It is short and straight to the point.  It has that Hank Williams magic embedded into it and so I listen to this song over and over and over .....

I think you get the idea of why some songs, such  as these, make feel like I want more of that.  The song is over way too soon.  There are not a lot of songs that have this effect on me.  I would guess maybe 15 or less.  My mood at the time has a lot to do with it as well.  Some of those artist that I can say gives me a song or two include John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Jim Croce, John Denver, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot, Harry Chapin, Graham Parsons, Neil Young (I really feel like I should have shared one of his songs.  Listen to "The Needle And The Damage Done" or "Long May You Run" to get a sampling).  These artists, these craftsmen have given the world a part of their soul.  I am so glad that they did that for us.  It is that part of themselves that dwell in some of these songs that make me listen to them over and over and over ....

IN MY MIND

"I’ll be all around in the dark – I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look – wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready, and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they build – I’ll be there, too."
(John Steinbeck)

"I've got nothing on my mind,
Nothing to remember,
Nothing to forget.
And I've got nothing to regret.
But I'm all tied up on the inside,
No one knows quite what I've got,
And I know that on the outside
What I used to be
I'm not anymore."
(Don McLean)

"Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself."
(Richard Nixon)

"You can go to church and sing a hymn
You can judge me by the color of my skin
You can live a lie until you die
One thing you can't hide
Is when you're crippled inside"
(John Lennon)

"The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?” ... PLASTIC!!
(George Carlin)

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
(Declaration of Independence) 

It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.
(Rene Descartes)

"I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You’d know what a drag it is to see you."
(Bob Dylan)

"When they knock you down, you not only have to get up, but you have to make it clear that you won't be knocked down a second time."

(Carl Yastrzemski)

Marijuana will be legal someday, because the many law students who now smoke pot will one day be Congressmen and they will legalize it to protect themselves.

(Lenny Bruce)

"I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know right now you don't care
But soon enough you're gonna think of me
And how I used to be"
(Rob Thomas)

"Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours."
(John Locke)

"The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace."
(Bill Hicks)

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
(John Adams)

"See the children of the earth
Who wake to find the table bare
See the gentry in the country
Riding off to take the air
See the jailer with his key
Who locks away all trace of sin
See the judge upon the bench
Who tries the case as best he can
See the wise and wicked ones
Who feed upon life's sacred fire
See the soldier with his gun
Who must be dead to be admired
See the man who tips the needle
See the man who buys and sells
See the man who puts the collar
On the ones who dare not tell
See the drunkard in the tavern
Stemming gold to make ends meet
See the youth in ghetto black
Condemned to life upon the street"
(Gordon Lightfoot)

"Books, in all their variety, offer the human intellect the means whereby civilization may be carried triumphantly forward."
(Winston Churchill)

"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right."
(Martin Luther King, Jr.)

"It is well known that when you do anything, unless you understand its actual circumstances, its nature and its relations to other things, you will not know the laws governing it, or know how to do it, or be able to do it well."
(Mao Tse Tung)

"I've built walls
A fortress, steep and mighty
That none may penetrate
I have no need of friendship
Friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room
Safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me
I am a rock
I am an island
And a rock feels no pain
And an island never cries"
(Paul Simon)

"Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath
If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less
When you get up in the morning and you see that crazy sun
There's a train leaving nightly called when all is said and done
Keep me in your heart for awhile
Sometimes when you're doing simple things around the house
Maybe you'll think of me and smile
You know I'm tied to you like the buttons on your blouse
Hold me in your thoughts, take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view
When the winter comes keep the fires lit
And I will be right next to you
Engine driver's headed north to Pleasant Stream
These wheels keep turning but they're running out of steam
Keep me in your heart for awhile"
(Warren Zevon)

Plus lots more ... maybe a "Part II" in the future.

THIRTY SIX MINUTES OF COHEN

Not often do I ask readers to take time to take a post seriously.  This is an exception.  It will take but thirty six minutes of your time and I implore you to listen to this album and read the lyrics as you do.  I don't bring up Leonard Cohen up very often and this will probably the last time I do. The video is the complete album and the words are so real.  The songs on this album talk to me.  I hear the words and can place them in where I find myself in my life most of the time.  All I ask is a short thirty six minutes and focus on the songs and what they are saying.  It is one of the best albums released in the last half century and will give you a window into my mind as well as Cohen's right before he passed away.
Thirty six minutes.  That is all I ask

  

You Want It Darker

If you are the dealer
I’m out of the game
If you are the healer
I’m broken and lame
If thine is the glory
Then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame

Magnified and sanctified
Be Thy Holy Name
Vilified and crucified
In the human frame
A million candles burning
For the help that never came
You want it darker
We kill the flame

Hineni Hineni
I’m ready, my Lord

There’s a lover in the story

But the story is still the same
There’s an lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame
But it’s written in the scriptures
And it’s not some idle claim
You want it darker
We kill the flame

They’re lining up the prisoners now

The guards are taking aim
I struggled with some demons
They were middle-class and tame
Didn’t know I had permission
To murder and to maim
You want it darker
We kill the flame

Hineni Hineni

I’m ready, my Lord

Magnified and sanctified

Be Thy Holy Name
Vilified and crucified
In the human frame
A million candles burning
For the love that never came
You want it darker
We kill the flame

If you are the dealer

I’m out of the game
If you are the healer
I’m broken and lame
If thine is the glory
Then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame

Hineni Hineni

I’m ready, my Lord

Treaty

I seen you change the water into wine
I seen you change it back to water too
I sit at your table every night
I try but I just don’t get high with you

I wish there was a treaty we could sign
I do not care who takes the bloody hill
I’m angry and I’m tired all the time
I wish there was a treaty
I wish there was a treaty
Between your love and mine

They’re dancing in the street – it’s Jubilee
We sold ourselves for love but now we’re free
I’m sorry for the ghost I made you be
Only one of us was real – and that was me.

I haven’t said a word since you’ve been gone
That any liar couldn’t say as well
I can’t believe the static coming on
You were my ground – my safe and sound
You were my aerial

The fields are crying out – it’s Jubilee
We sold ourselves for love but now we’re free
I’m sorry for the ghost I made you be
Only one of us was real – and that was me.

I heard the snake was baffled by his sin
He shed his scales to find the snake within
But born again is born without a skin
The poison enters into everything

I wish there was a treaty we could sign
I do not care who takes the bloody hill
I’m angry and I’m tired all the time
I wish there was a treaty
I wish there was a treaty
Between your love and mine

On The Level

I knew that it was wrong
I didn’t have a doubt
I was dying to get back home
And you were starting out

I said I better hurry on
You said, we have all day
You smiled at me like I was young
It took my breath away

Your crazy fragrance all around
Your secrets all in view
My lost, my lost was saying found
My don’t was saying do

Let’s keep it on the level
When I walked away from you
I turned my back on the devil
Turned my back on the angel too

They ought to give my heart a medal
For letting go of you
When I turned my back on the devil
Turned my back on the angel too

Now I’m living in this temple
Where they tell you what to do
I’m old and I’ve had to settle
On a different point of view

I was fighting with temptation
But I didn’t want to win
A man like me don’t like to see
Temptation caving in

Your crazy fragrance all around
You secrets all in view
My lost, my lost was saying found
My don’t was saying do

Let’s keep it on the level
When I walked away from you
I turned my back on the devil
Turned my back on the angel too

They ought to give my heart a medal
For letting go of you
When I turned my back on the devil
Turned my back on the angel too

Leaving The Table

I’m leaving the table
I’m out of the game
I don’t know the people
In your picture frame

If I ever loved you
It’s a crying shame
If I ever loved you
If I knew your name

You don’t need a lawyer
I’m not making a claim
You can put down your weapon
I’m not taking aim

I don’t need a lover
The wretched beast is tame
I don’t need a lover
So blow out the flame

There’s nobody missing
There is no reward
Little by little
We’re cutting the cord

We’re spending the treasure
That love cannot afford
I know you can feel it
The sweetness restored

I don’t need a reason

For what I became
I’ve got these excuses
They’re old and they’re lame
I don’t need a pardon
There’s no one left to blame

I’m leaving the table
I’m out of the game

If I Didn’t Have Your Love

If the sun would lose its light
And we lived an endless night
And there was nothing left
That you could feel
Well that’s how it would be
What the world would seem to me
If I didn’t have your love
To make it real

If the stars were all unpinned
And a cold and bitter wind
Swallowed up the world
Without a trace
Well that’s where I would be
What my life would seem to me
If I couldn’t lift the veil
And see your face

If no leaves were on the tree
And no water in the sea
And the break of day
Had nothing to reveal
That’s how broken I would be
What my life would seem to me
If I didn’t have your love
To make it real

If the sun would lose its light
And we lived an endless night
And there was nothing left
That you could feel
If the sea were sand alone
And the flowers made of stone
And no one that you hurt
Could ever heal

That’s how broken I would be
What my life would mean to me
If I didn’t have your love
To make it real

Traveling Light

I’m traveling light
It’s au revoir
My once so bright
My fallen star

I’m running late
They’ll close the bar
I used to play
One mean guitar

I guess I’m just
Somebody who
Has given up
On the me and you

I’m not alone
I’ve met a few
Traveling light like
We used to do

Goodnight goodnight
My fallen star

I guess you’re right
You always are

I know you’re right
About the blues
You live some life
You’d never choose

I’m just a fool
A dreamer who
Forgot to dream
Of the me and you

I am not alone
I’ve met a few
Traveling light like
We used to do
 

Traveling light
It’s au revoir
My once so bright
My fallen star

I’m running late
They’ll close the bar
I used to play
One mean guitar

I guess I’m just
Somebody who
Has given up
On the me and you

I’m not alone
I’ve met a few
Traveling light like
We used to do

But if the road
Leads back to you
Must I forget
The things I knew
When I was friends
With one or two
Traveling light like
We used to do

Seemed The Better Way

It seemed the better way
When first I heard him speak
But now it’s much too late
To turn the other cheek

It sounded like the truth
It seemed the better way
It sounded like the truth
But it’s not the truth today

I wonder what it was
I wonder what it meant
At first he touched on love
But then he touched on death

I better hold my tongue
I better take my place
Lift this glass of blood
Try to say the grace

Steer Your Way

Steer your way through the ruins
of the Altar and the Mall
Steer your way through the fables
of Creation and The Fall
Steer your way past the Palaces
that rise above the rot
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought

Steer your heart past the Truth
you believed in yesterday
Such as Fundamental Goodness
and the Wisdom of the Way
Steer your heart, precious heart,
past the women whom you bought
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought

Steer your path through the pain
that is far more real than you
That has smashed the Cosmic Model,
that has blinded every View
And please don’t make me go there,
tho’ there be a God or not
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought

They whisper still, the injured stones,
the blunted mountains weep
As he died to make men holy,
let us die to make things cheap
And say the Mea Culpa which
you’ve probably forgot
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought

Steer your way, O my heart,
tho’ I have no right to ask
To the one who was never
never equal to the task
Who knows he’s been convicted,
who knows he will be shot
Year by year
Month by month
Day by day
Thought by thought

String Reprise/Treaty

[Instrumental except final portion]

I wish there was a treaty we could sign
It’s over now, the water and the wine
We were broken then, but now we’re borderline
And I wish there was a treaty
I wish there was a treaty
Between your love and mine

All Songs Copyright 2016 by Old Ideas, LLC. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

BOB DYLAN AND THE NOBEL

Since 1901 the Nobel Organization has awarded 113 prizes for Literature.  When I stop to think about it, over the last 115 years only 113 authors have been selected to be the recipients of this prestigious award.  I looked over a complete list of these authors and discovered that I had actually only read 17 of these men and women who used literature as a means for promoting new ideas in philosophy, poetry and general humanitarianism.   I haven't even heard of well more than half of the names on the list.  Until this year the most recent Literature Nobel that I had read was awarded in 1983 to William Golding whose "Lord Of The Flies" I have read.  Most of the authors that have been read by myself were from the twenties to the fifties.  These are the seventeen Nobel Literature authors that I have read over my lifetime:

Bob Dylan 2016
William Golding 1983
Isaac Bashevis Singer 1978
Saul Bellow 1976
Jean-Paul Sartre 1964
John Steinbeck 1962
Albert Camus 1957
Ernest Hemingway 1954
Sir Winston Churchill 1953
William Faulkner 1949
Pearl Buck 1938
Eugene O'Neill 1936
Sinclair Lewis 1930
Thomas Mann 1929
George Bernard Shaw 1925
William Butler Yeats 1923
Rudyard Kipling 1907

The Nobel committee assesses who will win the prize for literature on the whole of a writers work.  It is not based on just one book or work as the Pulitzer Prize does.  The committee each year gives an explanation of why a certain writer is  awarded the prize.  I read all of the explanations of all the literature winners over the years and there seems to be one thing in common.  Their works promote a philosophy that addresses the state of mankind and to expose the failings and victories of mankind to help promote the betterment of the human race throughout the world.

There are novelists on that list as well as poets, historians and philosophers.   There is one that is different from all the others though.  This years recipient is Bob Dylan who is a singer/songwriter.

The literature world exploded when the Nobel announced Dylan's awarding of the prize.  A songwriter?  Sentiments ran deep and one writer suggested that if that is the case they might as well put Hemingway in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame.  Songwriting is not literature and fears were expressed that there will now be a flood of songwriters being considered and receiving the Nobel for literature.

The explanation the Nobel gave for awarding the prize to Dylan was this:

"for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition"

They considered his lyrics as poetry, which they are.  His canon of work dates all the way back to the late fifties which means that for at least the last fifty five or so years, Bob Dylan has been writing and recording songs that speak of individual rights that all men should be made available to.  The vast majority of his songs, or poems, deal with human conditions that have changed over the years.  He has written about civil rights.  He has written about the equality of man.  He has written about injustices.  He has written about political wrongs.  He has written of religion and his quest to find it.  He has written about the search for meaning and the search for truth.

If you don't like Dylan because of his style of music or because of his voice, then look up his lyrics and just read them.  Search for what the message is in each one of them.  Many people see Bob Dylan as a rebel, an instigator, a protestor and to a point he is.  Those parts of his philosophy are key to his special outlook on the American experience over the last half century.  He writes of things that need fixing.

Probably one of his most famous songs was one of his earliest.  "Blowing In The Wind" is a beautiful wonderful song but the words go deep.  The song lists problems and questions that the American people were addressing in the early sixties.  He addressed these problems and came to the conclusion at the end of each verse that "The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind..."

So what is the answer that is blowing in the wind?  Well, I am not positive what Dylan was thinking but as I have listened to that song nearly my whole life, and have sung it just as long, I have my own idea of what Dylan was trying to say.  The answer blowing in the wind was the American flag and what it stood for.  You take that flag and look at it and think of what it represents, the country it represents and the hopes that it gives us as Americans and you will find the answers in that thinking.  It is the Declaration of Independence.  It is the United States Constitution.  It is the freedom of Americans, some who have had to fight hard and give the ultimate sacrifice to save or gain that freedom and the hope of some who are still fighting for the freedom that this country strives to obtain for all of its citizenry.  That is what is blowing in the wind.  The flag and all it stands for.  Read these words and see what the answer is in your mind in this message from Dylan:

"Blowin' In The Wind"

Bob Dylan

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, and how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, and how many years can a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea?
Yes, and how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, and how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take 'til he knows
That too many people have died?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

I don't think the literature world needs to be worried about the Nobel being plowed through by a lot of songwriters.  The Nobel does not work that way.  You have to be a very special writer that really makes hard statements that promote your beliefs.  Think about it.  Out of all of the great authors over the last century or so and only 113 of them have gained this level of recognition.  There are not that many songwriters that even approach the bar that Dylan has set for them to win a Nobel.  I sat and thought about it a long time.  I thought of all the songwriters I know and if any of them approach what Dylan has accomplished over the last fifty years.   I came up with only four names.  Woody Guthrie, Paul Simon, Neil Young and Leonard Cohen.  Those four have written a lifetimes worth of song lyrics that addresses the social condition on a very steady basis.  But those three, as good as they are, do not come close to the quality and clarity that Dylan's songs do.  I don't think we will see another songwriter receive the Nobel for Literature anytime in the near or even the far future.

Dylan is special.  His music is special but most important, his message is special.

Bob Dylan more than deserves the Nobel for Literature 2016.

SOME SONGS SHOULD BE LEFT ALONE

The setting is a small concert hall.  Everything is covered in darkness.  Slowly the audience recognizes that something special is about to happen.  The longer the darkness persists, the quieter the small theatre becomes until the noise of the crowd succumbs to the darkness.  It is dark.  It is quiet.  Then a spotlight clicks on and lights up the tall figure off to the left of the stage.  He slowly strums his guitar, picking out notes among the chords and begins to make the harmonica around his neck wail sadly and slowly.  The crowd recognizes the song but remains quiet, knowing that this is a special moment that the man on stage has been sharing with his listeners for over forty years now.  It is a special and private moment made public and from deep down in his soul, with a heavy heart and his body being drained of emotion for this moment in time, the singer begins to sing his song.  From the start you know the words are more than lyrics,  they are from a time long ago that the singer has never been able to let go of.   "I caught you knockin' at my cellar door ... I love you baby can I have some more?  oooh ... ohhh .. the damage done.... ".  Neil Young begins singing the story of a long lost friend who lost his life to heroin when both of them were just beginning their trip as artists in the music world.  Even though the crowd has heard him perform this song hundreds of times, the pain and emotion that Young feels still comes from deep inside him and you can feel it.  You can hear it.  His emotions begin to touch you and your emotions begin to seep through.  There is not another song on this earth that can bring about truth the way "The Needle and the Damage Done" can.  The audience respects Young's words and remain silent until he strikes the finishing chords, the spotlight goes out, and Young gathers himself to perform the next song.  The vast majority of Neil Young's music is written from his soul, his heart, his life experiences.  Each one carries a special meaning that no one can really understand except for Neil Young.  And so the concert continues as Young sings his life out to the crowd that has gathered.  It is a song that no one else should attempt.  No one would be able to do it justice the way Young does because the song is Neil Young personified.

There is a young teenager sitting in his sister's room while she is out.  She has recently received a few new albums by way of joining a record club.  He pulls out an album entitled "Chicago Transit Authority" and sets the needle down between two grooves on the record.  A soft piano begins to play and is shortly joined by a bass and a soft drummer before the the magical voice of Terry Kath comes slipping through the beauty of instruments to add the beauty of voice and soul to his ears. "As time goes on ... I realize ... Just what you mean ... to me....".  It is a song to Kath's love of his life and every word coming out is so filled with sincerity and love that the teenager knows that this man is real.  The song is real.  The words are more than just words, they transcend the world of words and become true heart felt feelings.  "Colour My World" will stick with the teen for the rest of his life.  Whenever he hears it from now on, that special someone in his life will appear next to his side in spirit, in his mind.  No one could ever sing this song and put their raw emotions on display the way that Kath does.  Terry Kath would be dead in four short years, some say suicide others say accident, but either way the voice of Terry Kath would be silenced .... except on the recordings he did and "Colour My World" would bring his emotions and his love pouring out to generations to come, touching souls and hearts with his love and his sincerity.

"He was born in the summer of his 27th year.... " and with those words John Denver begins to tell another of his stories of his life and his loves through the song.  This one was the love he had found in Colorado, his love of the mountains, the nature that surrounded him that he could see so much beauty in.  He sang of his discovery of the Rocky Mountains and how it changed his life forever.  He sang with the same emotion as someone singing about a true love.  He sang of how his Utopian life was slowly changing as the beauty of Colorado began to be dismantled to make room for more and more people who saw the same beauty as he did.  The beauty they were experiencing was not comparable to the beauty he had experienced when he fell in love with the land, the wildlife, and nature in general.  It is a song of heartbreak and through his voice and his words, you can feel and hear the pain his soul is feeling.  His little corner of Colorado was changing and he wept for it.  It was a true love of his and he was losing it and only John Denver could express that pain he felt with his words.  Others might sing the song as a tribute to him, but they never came close because to John Denver, the song was a tribute to a beautiful land.  Only John Denver could sing "Rocky Mountain High" with the depth that he was able to.

Don McLean wrote and sang of his quest to get rid of his lonely thoughts and the way his thinking brought him down emotionally.  He begged for help from an old friend to help him sort things out while realizing that no one could.  The song was "Crossroads" and was lost on an album filled with happier songs, hits like "American Pie", "Vincent", and "And I Love Her So".  He asks if anyone can remember who he was, what he was like and can they help him get back to where he was while coming to realize that every road he traveled in his mind brought him back to the same place of despair.  "Can you remember who I was?  Can you still feel it? Can you find my pain? Can you heal it?"  The answer is no.  They can't feel it, they can't find it and they can't heal it.  So he is left to suffer in sighs as he continues his journey that yields no answers.  Can others sing this song?  of course they can.  Can they put the understanding that was in McLean's mind and put that understanding into the emotion and endless desire that McLean did?  No.  Only Don McLean can sing that song knowing what is behind it in his mind.

I sit and I listen to Paul Simon sing about wanting to be left alone to protect himself from the pain that others bring about to him in his life in "I Am A Rock".  I identify with the song so very much that it chokes me up most of the time I hear it.  I can identify with it.  I can understand the words and the feelings they bring out.  The question is, can I feel or ever know how Simon felt as he wrote these words?  What his mind was going through?  How he felt about his life and everything swirling around it?  the answer is no, I cannot.  I can let his words speak to me, I can put them into my own situation but there is no way, even if I could sing, that I would be able to perform this song with all of the pain and desire that Simon feels when he performs it.  It would be silly of me to think I could.  It is a personal song written by Paul Simon for Paul Simon.  No one can give these words the power that Simon can give them.  No one should try to.  Not even me.

That is what this entry is about.  I have previously written about song writers being the philosophers of today.  I think that is slowly slipping away as these great writer/philosophers begin to age and leave us behind with a finite catalog of their work.  Some of the songs that these writers write should be handled very carefully and respectfully.  These words represent a person's life, their emotions and their pain as well as happiness.  Other artists can and will record covers of these songs and many will try to reconstruct the feelings that the writers poured into them, but they won't be able to match them.

There are so many songs and so many writers who fit into the class of these few examples that I gave here.  Jim Croce wrote about "Like the pine trees lining the lonesome road ... I got a name..."  Hank Williams wrote of being so lonesome he could cry.  John Lennon wrote of "I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round..."   John Fogerty wrote of his early years and "If I only had a dollar, for every song I've sung. And every time I've had to play while people sat there drunk. You know, I'd catch the next train back to where I live..."  The list truly does go on forever.  There are some songs that should be left as they are, remembered as they were meant to be remembered as.

Some songs should be left undisturbed so future generations can hear and feel the emotion that was coming out of these artists mouths as they told their story.

I AM A ROCK

Paul Simon

A winter's day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Don't talk of love,
But I've heard the words before;
It's sleeping in my memory.
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

TRAGEDY IN THE ART WORLD - DECEMBER 8, 1980

This isn't the first post I will write about John Lennon and I promise it won't be the last.  He was too much of an influence on the arts to forget him or let his birth or death slip by without notice.

John Lennon was one of a kind.  People will argue that his song writing partner, Paul McCartney, was just as much of an influence if not more and that may be.  John and Paul were different.  They thought along different lines.  While Paul was indeed a great song writer and performer, he seemed to stay out of putting his thoughts, his philosophy out front.  Not so with John Lennon.

John was a complete artist.  He was a philosopher.  He was, in some ways, a politician.  He wrote books and poems.  He drew sketches portraying his life experiences.  He also,of course, wrote music.  His music changed over the years with each topic being a mirror as to what he was going through life at a particular time.  He was one of a kind.

Even the titles of some of his songs tell you what he was thinking or going through. Such song titles as "Crippled Inside", "Gimme Some Truth", "Instant Karma", "Power To The People", "Mind Games", "Imagine", "All You Need Is Love" and "Revolution" are examples of this.  There have been plenty of writers who wrote songs along such topics but in my opinion none came close to touching the genius of John Lennon.

One the most infamous events in Lennon's career was when he said  on March 4, 1966 that "We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity".  The world, especially the Christian world too great offense at this statement and it created a huge backlash against The Beatles which produced huge record burning parties and boycotts.  Lennon was soon to apologize for something that he said that he did believe. “I’m not anti-God, anti-Christ or anti-religion. I was not saying we are greater or better. I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I’m sorry I said it, really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. From what I’ve read, or observed, Christianity just seems to be shrinking, to be losing contact.”

I look back at that time in 1966 and what Lennon said had some truth to it.  The Beatles were huge.  They were filling stadiums.  Their fans were more or less worshiping them.  No doubt more people, especially kids, were showing more interest and belief in The Beatles then they were into religion.  That is all Lennon was saying.  But that one line was pulled out of context "We're bigger than Jesus" was all that was heard.  Lennon's foresight that he would have to apologize for something that he thought he was in the right about was a part of his maturing process.  The initial statement and following apology was probably the most important statements Lennon ever made.

 I did not always agree with John Lennon's philosophies, but I do respect any man who can present his thoughts in an intelligent manner without getting offended or offending.  Lennon simply spoke what was on his mind and you could take it or leave it.  It didn't really matter to him.  I learned a lot from this part of John Lennon and the world is a better place for allowing him to express ideas that were not necessarily mainstream.

The lyrics to his songs were the most efficient way that Lennon got his message across.  One of  his most popular songs titled "Imagine" has become a mantra for peace and equality and held up as a slogan by most people who only hear what they want to hear in the song.  These people do not really listen to the lyrics though.  The same people who were so very upset at the "bigger than Jesus" remark hold "Imagine" up as a great song that lays a blueprint down for how mankind should live. Yet the opening verse in "Imagine" is "Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try. No hell below us. Above us only sky". The second verse also attacks religion with "Imagine there's no countries. It isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion too.    "Imagine" is a song about socialism, close to communism and yet not only Americans, but people all over the world have held this song as a blueprint for life because they do not listen to the words.  Don't get me wrong, "Imagine" is a great song, even a masterpiece and I love it.  I love the lyrics to it but I don't agree with them very much.  It was, at that time, Lennon's philosophy however.

One thing that John Lennon did that impressed me was that he was able to listen to new ideas and often he would accept new ideas and throw away old ideas that he thought were flawed.  Not many men, especially artists, have that ability.  Lennon did.

By the time 1980 rolled around, John Lennon had been out of the public eye for five years.  He had not recorded or written during that time but had evolved into a more stable, down to earth man with family being one of the most important things in his life.  As this thinking progressed he began to write again and his last album, released just months before he was murdered, reflect a philosophy of love and family and people just getting along.  The music was toned down and not as angry as some of his earlier works were.  One of my personal favorite Lennon songs come from this album.  It is almost a biographical song which explains where he was at that moment in time.  It is titled "Watching The Wheels".

WATCHING THE WHEELS

People say I'm crazy doing what I'm doing,
Well they give me all kinds of warnings to save me from ruin,
When I say that I'm o.k. they look at me kind of strange,
Surely your not happy now you no longer play the game,

People say I'm lazy dreaming my life away,
Well they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me,
When I tell that I'm doing Fine watching shadows on the wall,
Don't you miss the big time boy you're no longer on the ball?

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round,
I really love to watch them roll,
No longer riding on the merry-go-round,
I just had to let it go,

People asking questions lost in confusion,
Well I tell them there's no problem,
Only solutions,
Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I've lost my mind,
I tell them there's no hurry...
I'm just sitting here doing time,

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round,
I really love to watch them roll,
No longer riding on the merry-go-round,
I just had to let it go.  

Despite all of the controversy that followed him, despite all of the brilliance in his words, his music, his writing and his art, John Lennon was a true renaissance man.  He was a man who was always true to himself even if it did temporarily cost him some fans and admirers.   It seemed like they always came back because when John Lennon said something it was truth in his own mind.  He was a special artist that come along in history all too rarely.  Part of the reason that Mark David Chapman gave for murdering Lennon was that Lennon had stood for helping the poor and yet all Chapman saw was a man with tremendous wealth.  In other words, Chapman saw Lennon as selling out.  To this I say read some of Lennon's lyrics and you will hear him talk about the poor and disenfranchised and how we, as mankind, should help them out.  You will also find that Lennon believed in working for what you get and deserve.  Read the lyrics to "Revolution" and you find that he is telling people to get things straight before you go off and just rant about revolution in the streets.  There is a right way and a wrong way, and Lennon was seeing that it was being approached the wrong way.

REVOLUTION

You say you want a revolution
Well you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be alright
Alright Alright

You say you got a real solution
Well you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well you know
We're doing what we can
But when you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be alright
Alright Alright

You say you'll change the constitution
Well you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well you know
You better free your mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don't you know know it's gonna be alright
Alright Alright 

The world could use a few John Lennons these days.  On December 8, 1980, the world lost one of it's finest thinkers and artists.  His works will live for a very long time if we are lucky.

EXPLANATION OF "RETIREMENT"

Just before I began writing this piece, I re-posted an entry from October of 2010 titled "Retirement".  The message of "Retirement" is one that takes us into the thinking of a person who feels they have lived their life to where it is supposed to end.  It takes us into the mind of a person who feels that there is nothing left for them to do in life and so life is without purpose and they retire from life.

The reason I posted "Retirement" again was to give me a point to start from in explaining to those of you who are interested who I see myself as being.  When I wrote "Retirement" I was not suicidal and had no plans in actually retiring from life myself.  The thought of being able to retire from life though visited my brain and my mind on almost a daily basis.  sometimes I am able to shake the feeling off while at other times that feeling of retiring from life sits and simmers in my mind changing form and direction and taking me away from what I would normally be thinking about.  There are times when I am watching a good baseball game or a historical documentary and suddenly I discover that I have missed the show and my mind had traveled to darker places than National Geographic could ever take it.  I miss out on a lot of life in this manner.  One of the reasons this blog exists  is to record events that I do remember once in a while because I know they won't be in my mind forever.  Another reason for writing here is to let people know me now and in the future after I am gone.

There are a few things I need to make clear before you read any further.  It is important to know that I do not expect anyone to have a clear understanding of what goes on in my mind.  I cannot understand what a couple of my friends have felt because they lost a child nor can I understand the pain they continue to carry inside of them years after losing that child.  I have never been in that situation and I hope I never am.  The pain must be unbearable to them.  I know the pain they feel is unbearable because they have told me.  they have tried to explain it to me, but there is absolutely no way I can begin to understand the pain they feel.  It is much the same with the feelings that go on in my mind.  I can try to explain it but will come up short and if you have not been where I am, there is no way you can understand what my mind feels like as it moves in and out of those dark places it wanders into almost on a daily basis.  I don't expect you to understand and it would be best if you didn't try.  you won't get there and if you did, you would wish you hadn't.

I am not looking for anything from anybody.  I am not looking for people to feel sorry for me or to pity me or to try to make changes in the way they relate to me.  What I am writing is just a part of me so that if I do appear strange to you or appear to be quiet and standoffish, you might take a second thought and not pass judgement on me too quickly.  I am not looking or asking for anything.  I am just putting down a record of who I am and how I feel as I work my way through life.

I think I must have been this way since I was born, but out of the natural feeling of surviving I ignored it and went on with life as I saw it around me.  I watched how people related to each other and I believe I tried to mimic that action.  I learned not to be the real me but rather put up a front that society would accept.  Walls went up around me and I only let people see the part of me that I thought they wanted to see.  I developed a fairly good wit and learned how to smile on the outside while on the inside I was feeling anything but the way people were seeing me.

There came a time several years ago when I was not able to hold it all in anymore.  Sitting at my desk eating lunch one day the main event happened.  I refer to it as the day my mind broke.  It was a major panic/anxiety attack that ripped my thinking apart from that day forward.  Never again would I feel like I really knew myself and I damn sure knew that nobody else knew me even if they thought they did since the day they met me or all the way back to 1956 when I entered this world.

From the day that my mind broke up to today  I became aware of the walls that I had built around me.  No one had been inside these walls my entire life.  There was a Bill that ventured outside the walls and the Bill that stayed hidden within the walls.  As each day goes by, I feel more uncomfortable every time I venture outside the walls.  I find myself trying to put on that facade that family and friends have come to know over the years with more difficulty as each day passes.  Perhaps it is because I am getting older and it is easier for me to tire of trying to keep that facade up.

Very few people recognize the fact that I am a fake when outside those tall dark moss covered walls.  I am aware that at times I feel myself slipping back behind the walls when out but quickly gather strength to put the fake Bill up again.  Nobody notices when I slip back inside.  It happens and I go back out again before they notice.  When I get home though, I am exhausted from being outside the walls and am grateful to get off by myself and crawl back into the darkness of the room that walls surround.

So what is it like inside the walls?  It is dark and it is lonely.  It is quiet and sometimes calm.  At the same time it can be a horrible scary place.  Thoughts of my past wash over me and remind me of all the mistakes I have made in life.  Mistakes in dealing with people.  Mistakes in acting proper in society.  Mistakes of losing my temper when I could not hold myself in check while outside the walls.  I had and still do have a terrible temper.  Sometimes when I lose track of keeping myself in check in public, it lashes out.  I have not only surprised but have also hurt a lot of people with my temper.  When I hurt someone when I lose my temper, there is no making it right.  There is no way to explain why I did whatever I did to hurt them.  After losing my temper and hurting myself during the day, I crawl back behind my walls at night and beat myself up for letting it happen.  I feel like I deserve to be hurt as payment for hurting them and I do my best to inflict pain on my mind within the walls that trap me.

Inside these walls my mind feels like it is under attack.  Thoughts that I do not want to have seem to always find their way to me.  Under what seems and feels like a constant hitting in my mind, I have found a few ways to try to control it.  Music is a huge tool that I use to quiet the noise in my head.  Music is magic almost.  Music can take some of my feelings and put a different spin on how I feel.  Some of the most depressing songs that I know are the songs that are able to bring quiet inside the walls.  I feel like these songs written by people such as John Lennon, Paul Simon, Warren Zevon and Bob Dylan fight back my own thoughts with their thoughts and things seem to balance out sometimes.

And so we come to "Retirement".  I am getting old.  I am getting tired.  I have been venturing outside my walls far too long putting that mask on so people will see the Bill they expect to see.  I focus on everything that is said so I don't get lost in what is going on in a situation with people where they might notice something is wrong.  I am just too tired at times.

There comes a time in life when it is time to lay down your tools, stop your labor and go into retirement.  That is what that piece is about.  Recognizing that the time has come and it is time to simply retire.  We retire when our labors are done.  We are retired when we have done what has been expected of us over the years and now it is done.  We retire when we finally finish the job that we have set out to do.

The man in "Retirement" has come to this realization.  He has done everything that he can do in life.  His life is no longer moving forward, but rather has leveled out.  He has nothing left to do in life and so he decides to retire.

As I sit inside my musky damp walls alone with my thoughts in the dark, my mind goes over my life.  It recalls to me what has been accomplished and what hasn't.  It tries to balance things that have been my life over the last 57 years in a meaningful way.  My mind has a dark spin to all of the events over all the years, especially the years since that day that my mind broke.

It tries to talk me into retirement.  Sometimes I feel like my dark mind is right in what it is telling me.  Sometimes it feels like it is time to retire even though deep down in my soul, I know it isn't.

LOU REED - ANOTHER FALLEN ICON

Lou Reed is dead.  As my age progresses it seems like a lot of the people I looked up to either in the arts, sports, or public figures and politicians  see to be passing on at an increasing rate.  Just earlier this year Ray Manzarek, the true genius behind Jim Morrison and the doors passed away.  Stan Musial passed away shortly before the start of the 2013 Baseball season.  Every time one of my old icons passes I think, there is no way but there is a way.  They are getting older too and time just keeps ticking away.  Every time one of these icons dies, I wonder who will be the next one or will it be me.

Lou Reed was special though.  Like many kids my age, my first introduction to Lou Reed was in 1972 when he released his classic "Walk on the Wild Side".  It was a song that was instantly likable.  It had a soft smooth rock beat to it that slowly built then faded away again.  The words were edgy and pushed the song right up to the limit of being to edgy for air play.  It would be the only time that Lou Reed saw the top 40 in his career.

As my peers and myself fell in love with that song, we began to wonder who this Lou Reed was and we searched out his older material.  I remember the first song I heard of Lou Reed's other than "Walk on the Wild Side" was a song called "I'm Waiting for My Man".  This song was more what, I would come to realize, the style of Lou Reed.  It was raw electric rock.  It had a heavy fast beat and was meant to be played a little on the high side of the volume knob.  The lyrics to it were very edgy as it told the story about a boy going into the black part of New York City and waiting for his drug dealer to show up and make a delivery.  This is what Lou Reed was about for the majority of his career.

Lou Reed was New York personified.  New York ran through his veins and everything that seemed tied to Reed and his music was also tied to New York.  He started out as a youngster writing pop songs for others to sing.  They were not very good pop songs and for the most part, none of us have probably heard them very often if at all.  There something magic about to happen to Lou Reed though as he worked his way through New York looking for a way to express himself.  When he turned that corner another icon would discover Reed.

That other icon was Andy Warhol.  Andy Warhol was just breaking out into the pop art world.  HE was becoming famous with his modern art that looked like no one else's.  Warhol was an original and he liked to keep himself in the company of other originals..Warhol had a loft in New York called "The Factory" and it was here where he did most of his painting and his film works.  He invited Reed up to the factory, made one of his famous screen tests of Reed, as he did with almost everyone who visited the loft, and began a friendship with Reed.  When Andy found out that Lou Reed and John Cale were musicians he encouraged them to make a house band for the factory.  The two men did get a band together and began writing songs that appealed to them, not the pop songs that Reed had been writing.

Warhol listened to a few songs and encouraged the band to get rougher, edgier, push the limits and that is just what they did.  Andy came to love the music and the band, which became known as the Velvet Underground was born.  Warhol continued to encourage the band and introduced them to a tall blonde model named Nico.  The sound was raw and edgy and sounded like no other band at the time.  It created it's own unique New York sound.  When the Velvet Underground finally recorded it's first album, Warhol did the artwork for the cover.  It was a simple white cover with a plastic banana that could be peeled off and placed anywhere on the album that the owner wanted it to be.  After the initial release of the album with the original Warhol artwork, the banana would simply be printed on the album cover.

Things started to spin around the band and the factory.  Drugs of all types were encouraged there and were available.  Nico eventually died as did many other factory residents, like Edie Sedgewick. Then came the crash that would change eveything.  Warhol died.  The factory stumbled a long a little while but without Warhol, there was no glue to keep things humming along the way it use to.  It wasn't long until Reed and Cale to the Velvet Underground out on it's own and recorded an album or two that did not get any notice at all.

It was then that Lou Reed and John Cale split and Lou Reed cut his first solo recording and "Walk on the Wild Side" was born.  People began buying the album and soon discovered that the Lou Reed sound was a mixture of different styles.  The west coast did not embrace Reed but the East coast, especially the New York/New Jersey areas fell in love with him.  He became a regular at New York night clubs preferring not to actually tour but to stay in New York and simply play his music, the music he loved so much.

That was how he started and how he became known and grew into a national Rock and Roll star.  Lou Reed did not care what people thought of his music.  He did not care what people thought of his voice or his edgy words that made the songs what they were.  Interviewers were likely to get lectured from Lou Reed for asking stupid questions.  His reviewers in the New York Papers did not phase him if they gave his recording a bad review.  Lou Reed was being Lou Reed and this was his music, take it or leave it.  He was one of those magic poets who had a talent for using words to explain feelings and to tell the right from wrong.  He was in the class of Bob Dylan and Neil Young and would create his own following that never left Lou Reed.  The following grew as Reed grew and as he began to age a whole new generation began discovering Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground.  His songs never lost their meaning or their effect on society as a whole.

Lou Reed became a model for a lot of singers that would come later.  His influence on the world of music and rock in general will forever hold it's place.  There will always be a little of Lou Reed when a new band comes out with that rough edgy sound.  You can hear a little of Lou Reed in the work of Bruce Springsteen for example.

Yesterday, Lou Reed did not pass away at age 71.  Lou Reed died and he happened to be 71.   He died.

Lou Reed and Nico 1965

Lou Reed and Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol Album Artwork for the Velvet Underground

Lou Reed at the beginning of his elder statesman years

Lou Reed, age 71 2013

There was a loud "THUMP" in the world of music when Reed took his last breath.  It was not an easy slip into death, it was the sound of someone who had died.

For all of us music lovers out here, who have listened to Lou Reed's music all these many years, there is a hole left in the music world that doesn't occur often.  Every artist that dies leaves a hole of some size or other but there are those whose deaths leave gigantic holes that will never be replaced or forgotten.  Lou Reed left one of those hole, along with John Lennon, Hank Williams, Buddy Holly, Johnny Cash, and Jimi Hendrix among others.

The Lou Reed hole will never be filled. 

FRIENDS COME AND GO

I have never been much of an out going person.  Before the depression and anxiety hit, I was what they call an introvert.  Personally, I think being an introvert made the depression easier to attack me and take hold in my life.

When you are an introvert, friends are hard to come by and even harder to hold on to.  I have had friends as I grew up in life, mostly through school or from the neighborhood.  When I was in elementary school, they seemed to keep a group of kids in the same class all the way through sixth grade.  I came to know these kids that went through school with me and am still in contact with a few of them.  Doug lived down the street from me the whole time I was growing up.  We were pretty close.  I made a few friends during high school, but none that I would say were very close.  Well, there was Larry and Ronnie.

Something happens after high school though.  We all go our own different directions and we lose track of people.  I already had started on my career in engineering before I graduated and so I had a job that I went to putting off college for awhile.  When I first graduated high school I didn't think I really needed college.  Instead I got married the fall after I graduated and began my career.  It was only when I matured that I saw that I needed to go to college and I did.  I went nights and weekends spending a lot of my spare time studying.  While I was studying I lost track of people and they moved on while I stayed.

The only friends you can't get rid of, or lose track of it seems is family, and that is kind of a forced friendship.  I don't think much of my family, immediate or extended really know me that well, or who I really am.  They try I think to know me but I guard myself against anybody knowing me, even family.

So the few close friends I have had have moved on.  Moved to other parts of the country.  Ronnie is in Houston now and we only communicate through an occasional email.  I don't hear from Larry at all.

I had one close friend at the office and we were friends for a long time.  I have lost track of him now.  He moved to Jackson Mississippi and then retired a few months ago.  Since his retirement, I haven't heard a peep from Dennis.  Close friend?  may be at one time but as of now he is gone and I have no way to get a hold of him.

I think I push these friends that have entered and left my life away from me.   I am not sure why I do that or even how it happens.  It just does.

So this is what life has come down to.  I have succeeded in putting up huge walls around me and the payoff is that I am supposed to live without a friend.  There is a Paul Simon song that I have posted before but I really relate to.  I feel it describes me SO very well.  It is almost like I have patterned my life after this song.

"I Am A Rock"

A winter's day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I've built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Don't talk of love,
But I've heard the words before;
It's sleeping in my memory.
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.