J.J. Krupert Top 13 Countdown - March '11 #12: "Think About It" by Otis Redding

This is another Otis Redding song, and I was gonna write something about soulful music and how it was a rainy Sunday and we made a giant playlist of soulful chill ass music and it played all day long until the whole 8 hour list was done, and then we started it again. But I couldn't really get into the flow of that stream of thought, so I typed shit, then deleted, then typed, then deleted. Conscious is a hard thing to overcome, and I realize the correct term is "conscience" but I am being wrong on purpose there because when you get conscious of what you are doing, you lose the ability to do it so easily I think. The human condition is to think too fucking much, and we all do it, and try to make ourselves feel better by mocking others who do not do it the way we do it. And oddly enough, as I get lost in the nothing, I talk about how we think too much, and realize, "Oh yeah, this song is called 'Think About It'." And it is.
That's the beauty of a good goddamned song. You can talk and think and get hung up in your world all you want. For me, that means I am trying to go back to work today, not feeling sure about it, still have a fucking oozing 2-inch deep wound on my abdomen, but feel like an unproductive member of society at this point. But why do I care? What makes me have a work ethic for a job that I regard as a transition towards doing what I truly want to do with my life? Shit man, I should be on short-term disability and riding this the fuck out as hard as possible you'd think. But I can't. I think too much, and wonder if someone is being let down by me not doing more than I am, in my work. And then this is my work too, and I wonder if I space out and don't do things for a few days if I am letting down people who come here, looking for their escape. Do people check every day? And at the same time, I'll talk to someone who says, "Yeah, I look at your shit once a week, and goddamn there's always a ton of shit on there." To me, it's constant, but to most it's random. How do you navigate through it? What the fuck is wrong with me?
Well, that's the thing. This is what I do, even if we haven't really nailed down what it is yet. I mean, I know, and there's a process, and we'll be pulling the tarp off of some other things this year, and maybe it will make sense. Or maybe not. It's hard when you overthink it. And really all I do is overthink.
Which is probably why a song by Otis Redding asking the ol' lady who is about to cut out the door to give it a second thought. It is easy to imagine when you are a tortured cerebral basketcase that the other person has not given it the proper brain look from the right angle, like you have. And also the greatness of a song is to capture that moment, to be sad and broken-souled because the person you had invested so emotionally in is bankrupting your ass all of a sudden, completely withdrawn and bound to be gone. Who hasn't been there? Why the fuck don't people make music like that anymore?
I'm getting hung up on things again, because I just thought about it and wondered where I was going. I am going nowhere, at least not with this. It is a song. A great fucking song.
STEAL "Think About It"
NEXT: The fantastic tale of the origins of an urban culture that has been domesticated by devils to plow the minds of the sheeple!