I will readily admit that I have overslept on the country doom and gloom of Townes Van Zandt, mostly because I have found in my listening experiences that a lot of that Gram Parsons style old kinda country but more real type shit is overrated, and more geared to fake ass hillbillies like Johnny Knoxville PBR drinkers than someone like me. I don't wear straw hats, ever. But I read an interview or something with Steve Earle that talked about Townes Van Zandt back in the day, and how he was throwing beer bottles at Steve Earle while Earle was trying to play a show, and I can relate to that type of belligerence, so I stoled some Van Zandt music to give it a fresh shot. Most of it still doesn't speak to me that greatly, though I do find his original "Pancho & Lefty" to be vastly superior in emotion to the Merle and Willie version. Mostly I got into this track, because it is codeine death in a country song. I can dig that. I feel a real drag to my life right now, and am glad that I have minimized the external poisons, because I feel they could consume me at this soul vulnerable state I'm in. I can understand the philosophy of "Waiting Around To Die" because you are not the type to do it to yourself, but goddamn, seems like you've been swimming upstream your whole afflicted life, and it's pretty easy to just stop fighting and let the current pull you wherever it wants.
I am really tired. I don't say that as a cry for help or some bullshit call for attention. I could really give a fuck if anybody cares (although to be honest, and unrelated, I have been enjoying having more comments going with posts lately). I'm just tired. Tired of what I came from and trying to sort through it and make myself into what I think I should be, tired of fucking struggling all the time, tired of fighting to find a five minute window of sunshine to sit in and smile with the headphones on. My brain feels duller than it was a year ago, and that was duller than the year before. How do you resharpen yourself? I mean, it feels and looks like things are about to start happening, about to break open, but damn, it's felt that way forever already. Not sure if I'm stuck in a holding pattern or just swirling around in endless circles before finally getting flushed into the ground.
So yeah, this is an uplifting song, and one that sounds pretty appropriate in my plastic chair by the pigpen, recovering from whatever it is that has poisoned my insides I've been recovering from for two months now, smelling the pig shit in the spring-like breeze, looking down across the field, ghosts of old dogs and goats running around in the bottom. The stump to the old goat tree I used to nail dead work boots up is my table. It sits next to me, I stare at it and think how I wish I could draw pictures as pretty as the schizophrenic lines of decay and tree fiber that go everywhere on it by natural accident.
STEAL “Waiting Around To Die”
NEXT UP: A song my whole family, as well as the world enjoys!
No comments:
Post a Comment