This week, the challenge, the content, and the musical inspiration all lined up in obvious ways for me. I lost an old friend last week, one with whom I used to spend a bit of time cruising around in cars and dreaming of the future. With apologies to Jerry, sometimes you gotta work blue, and sometimes only certain curses can really express how you feel.
I've also been listening a good bit this week to the new Frank Turner album, which is basically nothing but English folk-pop tunes cursing the darkness. This song is probably a direct rip-off of Frank (and Amy Correia's "The Bike," strangely enough), but it's mine, dammit.
lyrics
Well I haven't thought about you
In a long long line of years
Like the cars out on Tyvola
Front of your Chevy Cavalier
Back when you and me had nowhere special
We were gonna go
'Cept to take over the world
To the sounds of the everlasting radio
Guess I lost you in the shuffle
No surprise we'd drift apart
What brought us close? The wise man's traps,
Cigarettes and girls and art
And when I found you in the ether
Full of gods and guns and flags
Ain't it funny how some kindred souls
Get divided by these snags
It's you and that damn laugh
And my heart's reduced by half
It's been said before
Been done to death
But it's the only thing we're working with
Don't let it go
Before it's just begun
Run, goddammit, run!
They're going to put you in the ground tomorrow
And I wish that I were there
But I'll drink a toast with my finest bourbon
It's rotgut swill, but what do we care?
And I'll spend a minute back in 1989
When you swore the world was ours for asking
The poet drew his battle line
But what the hell did we know?
We were shiftless, we were fools
We had fire and we had ammunition
But we never had the tools
Now you've got my full attention
I can swear I hear your voice
So let's burn this fucker to the ground
While we still have any choice
It's you and that damn laugh
And my heart's reduced by half
It's been said before
Been done to death
But it's the only thing we're working with
Don't let it go
Before it's just begun
Run, goddammit, run!
So, this one's for the Bear
May we never live by halves
May we always find the strength
May we never fail the paths
That we have chosen, may we
Raise our fists like it's 30 years ago
And "Running With the Devil"'s on the FM radio
And no matter how we fight
There's not a damn thing to forgive
And all the cancer in the world
Can't tell us how to live
It's you and that damn laugh
And my heart's reduced by half
I'm gonna miss you.
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