Destiny (download)

Our destiny is frequently met in the very paths we take to avoid it. - Jean de La Fontaine

Sometimes songs start with a concept, an over-arching theme that presents itself to us as “worthy”.  For me, these occurrences seem few and far between; in fact, I’m jealous of writers who can pick what they want to write about, grab a pen and a guitar, and get cracking.  That’s just never been the case for me.  As I’ve alluded to before, it’s the random things that grab my attention, and, more often than not, it’s these random things that end up turning into songs.

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I’m a fan of masterfully-written first lines.  A librarian friend of mine recently told me about a game that her and her librarian friends play, presumably at librarian parties:  one person will say a first line of a famous novel, and then the others have to guess the novel it comes from.  (This game sounds to me like something I would do well at, and then be instantly embarrassed at how good I was at it, like when you play “Jeopardy” with friends and you realize that every single one of them is puzzled at how much you know about Woody Allen films or famous mass murderers.)

The truth is, first lines can become just as iconic, or even more iconic, than the novels they preface.  Take “A Tale of Two Cities”: many people have read it.  However, many more people can recite for you how it begins (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”).  

In short, I subscribe to the Best Foot Forward theory - that the stories you want to read will draw you in from the first word.  So when I woke up one weirdly-sunny February morning with “If I had my way, I’d be sleeping all day, with a pile of leaves at my feet” clanging around in my head, I could do nothing but throw up a silent “thank you”, scribble it down on the tiny, chapped steno notepad I had been keeping on my nightstand, and leave it.

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On a wholly unrelated note, is it weird that I really hate talking about myself like I’m some sort of fractured, serious auteur?  Or that I hate talking about myself at all?  Not to get too stream-of-consciousness about this whole blog endeavor, but writing like this makes me feel self-important and just a little pretentious.  I would just as soon you not know that I keep notebooks by my bed and worry to myself that I’m going to one day forget how to write a decent song.  This is a private manner.  You should move along.  Nothing to see here.

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If I had my way, I’d be sleeping all day
With a pile of leaves at my feet
and I’d never need an answering machine

We were taught to be kind to the primitive minds
Who leave gunpowder lines to the truth
One whisper and it blows up good
It hits you harder than you thought it would

And what you need is a shower and some clean clothes
An hour of sleep and a ride to the apartment
Don’t faint here, you’d stick out like a sore thumb

Hey, destiny
Hey, destiny
Hey, destiny
What are you doing with me

So you ripped from the seams of your recognized dreams
And left him there holding the edge
There’s a list of things you could’ve said

You called and I listened and thought for a minute
That this is the closest I’ll be
To anybody needing me
I could be part of someone’s history

What you need… 
An hour of sleep…
Don’t faint here…

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I’m not sure that this song needs any sort of depth-plumbing and intense explanation.  It speaks for itself.  But as I look back on the lyrics of this song, I feel I need to point out the one part that I feel speaks about me: “This is the closest I’ll be to anybody needing me…I could be part of someone’s history.”

If we can be frank about personal issues for a minute, I’ve seen my fears evolve as I’ve been dragged, kicking and shouting, into adulthood.  Where I once was scared of things like getting lost in the supermarket and drowning in the ocean while people watched and finding dead bodies in public restrooms, now I find my fears are squarely based in reality, and mostly have to do with how I’m viewed by everyone.  And the biggest of those fears is this: that I will live a life of no consequence and no importance.  That I will have no impact or influence on the people around me.  That I will be mediocre for the rest of my life.

I don’t say this for pats on the back or “chin up, cheer up” speeches.  I say this because it’s real, and because it struck me how much that line I quoted spoke so loudly about me, and how I view my place in the grand scheme of things.  The protagonist of “Destiny” can only be moved from inaction to action by the promise of posterity, of immortality…of the chance to “be part of someone’s history.”  I’m not too positive that that line’s not about me.