"Track 1, wherein the speaker urges himself from his Couch of Misery into the Chair of Acceptance."
The answer is: writing songs. I wrote it after a few weeks of sitting in a couch-fastened funk, watching reruns of NYPD Blue as the world passed my miserable ass by. I hadn't written in a while, so I set a challenge for myself in hopes that it would spark something worth getting up for. I tried to begin as many words in each stanza with the same letter without the song sounding silly or precocious*. I got through D, E and F, but not A, B, C (too obvious) or G and so forth (although there are some pretty comedic attempts at G in a notebook somewhere...). I highly recommend the "set a challenge for yourself" method of breaking writer's block...that's actually why I have this blog. Just getting something out on to a (web)page is usually enough to start the wheels of song back into motion, and even if it's doggerel, you're still one song up from when you woke. And that's always good. Enjoy.
How I Got Through It
Don't it make you tired, son,
don't it take the wind out of your sails?
Don't it drive the difficult decisions
deeper into their derail?
Don't it make the miracles
of simple sighs and lyrical devices
dive,
dissecting intellect
with devastating calls (collect)
and vices?
Elevate your eloquence with
embers left from self-defense and alcohol;
ever wander, ever wonder.
Everyone's got something underneath it all.
And even if you've ever earned
the privilege of being burned
by such a pretty noise,
everybody doesn't see it.
Better to exist than be its whipping boy.
For the sake of fear of flying,
figure out what part is dying fastest, then
forget your fears and amputate it.
You'll be thankful once you've made it past this.
- Justin Pope
(c)2005 Justin Pope Music
all rights reserved
Justin Pope - vocals, guitars, scraping sound, bass, choir
Joe Durniak - drums, far away guitar solo
from the forthcoming "a bottle from every case" CD release
* - and yes, I know it's a wee bit precocious. One out of two ain't bad.
