Definitely, I would say this is the song that describes me most, except that I have never thought of myself as green, except for maybe one short year, when I was trying to get in touch with the spirit of music, and I figured it was somewhere in between the colors blue & green, so I gave away all my pink & white things to trade them in for blue & green ones.
I even wore a stretchy blue teddy bear sweater on my head as a hat. I was very poor and it was on clearance for $1, so I just hoped no would would notice the little sleeves. I also tried to eat as much black licorice as possible & scent everything with anise & fennel, which seemed to me (along with lilac) to be the most musical scents, due to their twisted nature.
Music is a twisty sort of thing that connects what is real to what isn’t. Like an affirmation in reverse, music is a channel through which bad things can exit reality. You should never sing about anything good, because you might spin it out of existence.
Music expands our reality in a horizontal direction. It can’t connect us to upper or lower realms, but rather opens the door to realities that are parallel to our own. I think of these as the etheric worlds- where beings similar to the ones in storybooks live. Beings who are eternal, amoral and tied in to the same physical reality as us. Especially those semi-transparent humanoid beings who are around 4 feet high.
But none of this relates to this song, which was written more recently and not during that blue & green time. It was a song I heard while sleeping, which turned out to be the time of a lunar eclipse, which makes sense, given its silvery feeling. I don’t think of the moon as being only silver though, but also green since it turns everything into goo, just like the primordial green ooze that the world came out of.
Sometimes I feel like I am drowning in primordial ooze and struggling to come up for a breath of crisp air.
*
The moon a crescent in the sky
The world a carpet down below
He came to place me on the ferris wheel
His face a shadow in the show.
Green. Green.
Pull back the curtain and you’ll find
An empty room that know one knows
Shake your head and climb the ferris wheel
This is the world that you will come to know.
Green. Green.
I thought the flowers they would one day, one day
I thought the leaves and trees would one day call me home.
You take my hand just like a leaf
You show my foot just where to go
You help me climb upon the ferris wheel
You point down at the world below.
Green. Green.
Mostly, I think it is a really bad idea to include photographs of husbands. Not to mention that James values his invisibility. And yet… for the sake of context, I feel he needs to make a yearly appearance. After all, most of my adult years my identity has been that of a wife (to him + a previous husband) & not so much an individual.
But of course, I am trying to defy nature by changing that which is just one reason why including any photographs of James is a bad idea.
“Take Me Home Country Roads,” though somewhat accurate (the dark & dusky part), also leaves people with the mistaken impression that this is a home sweet home goody goody golden biscuit sort of place, which- except for the biscuit part- it isn’t. It is the least goody goody square place I have ever seen.
West Virginia is a weird combination of things that are too earthy to be human, and things that are too spiritual to be human with not much to flesh out the middle parts. Being neither earthy, nor particularly spiritual myself, I don’t relate to many elements of life here. Still, I recognize it as a nurturing environment- like a womb- where a person can focus on growing into themselves, rather than running around chasing after shiny things.
Plus, I like its purple & gray mists. It is one of those rare places where, in the battle between nature and man, nature is winning. Living here forces you to seek a life beyond human games and human prizes. It is a true land of opportunity where you can grow in any direction you wish and there is not much to stop you. Unless, of course, you need an organized grid of human structures and expectations to help you function. Then you are screwed. This is a world where you have to bring your own yellow.
Can you see how this place is nice but also different from an office space?
Life
may not be real
Pikey what a thing to say
you know that you weren’t raised that way
And yet
sometimes I fear
God has left me so alone
a million miles from any home
To walk a road that has no end
The golden hay lies beyond the bend.
But why would we break?
Why would we cry?
In the end it’s only pain
we’ve known it in so many ways
I know
she felt it too
Remember her, that little bird
so soft we never heard a word
A hint of pink behind the door
and in the end a pile of feathers on the floor
Pikey, you know it won’t be long
Take my hand, I can feel their eyes
descending from the bluest skies
My gun
My iron bar
Life remember I was your friend
I knew that you had no end
Your fields were filled with golden hay
Three clouds they fly above then slowly drift away.
Trying to relate to the person I was when I wrote this song, a week or two ago. So much has happened since then. Do you ever feel like you know who you are, but then you realize it was never you, you were just possessed by someone else’s ghost? That is sort of what happened to me.
About a year ago, you see, I started feeling unbearably jealous around the clock. Not jealous of anything in particular, but just this endless jealous feeling would that never let up. I would just wake up feeling painfully jealous and then try to figure out who or what I was jealous of. I tried all of the classical remedies for jealousy- like carrying holly leaves in your pocket- but none of them made a dent. And the more jealous I became, the more suspicious, sly & paranoid I grew as well.
Eventually I just grew to accept that I was a supernaturally jealous person and there was nothing I could do about it.
Until a couple days ago, when I was looking at the dark green cloud covering my stomach, and realized that these actually weren’t my feelings of at all- I was just absorbing other people’s negative green feelings like a sponge. I think this is pretty common really, for people to be sponging up the negative emotions of others. Some people are more sponge-like than others though, and also specialize in sponging up different sorts of colors.
Although I am pretty far on the sponge end of the spectrum, I have met a couple people who are more spongy than me. When I am around them, I always feel better, knowing if I stand near them I will magically become poised and collected, while they will start babbling incoherently and then slip on a banana peel.
So always keep someone more spongy than yourself around, is my advice. Or if you are a man, just get married and there is an 80% chance your wife will do the trick.
Goodbye for now, I go Who am I? I don’t know, nobody knows Goodbye for now, so long I will reach for you one day through arms of song…
I saw the people form a long thin line They surrounded me in a circle; I did not want to die I saw a dark spot move across the sky Her message was so clear to me: goodbye, goodbye.
Goodbye for now, I go Who am I? I don’t know, nobody knows Goodbye for now, so long I will reach for you one day through arms of song…
They built their village in the northern woods This is not my home, one day I’ll leave for good I cooked my food beneath a veil of stars This is not my home, I said with quivering arms.
Goodbye for now, I go Who am I? I don’t know, nobody knows Goodbye for now, so long I will reach for you one day through arms of song…
They crossed the river in a long thin line Their clothes were stacked upon their heads, piled so high They held each other’s hands with long thin arms Though I leave this place, I will remember you as fallen stars.
Goodbye for now, I go Who am I? I don’t know, nobody knows Goodbye for now, so long I will reach for you one day through arms of song.
*
I wrote this song a couple years ago when I was redecorating my apartment in the hopes that it would magically transform my life into a more exciting one. Since I had already tried every other decorating style I could think of- and my exciting life had not yet manifested- I decided to use reverse psychology on the universe and make my home impersonal and sterile, like a business office. I ‘decluttered,’ removed pictures from the wall, and replaced cutesy soap dishes with industrial ones. I tried to make everything as white and empty as possible. I decided to stop writing songs, to make the void even greater.
And it did make me feel empty. I always get this particular sad feeling after decluttering. ‘Decluttering’ is a popular movement at the moment- supposedly all aspects of your life will improve when you release unnecessary possessions- but I am more or less an opponent of it. Without possessions to weigh us down, our minds become untethered. I learned this the hard way, having given away my possessions many times. When I left one husband and married another, I placed everything I owned, clothing and all, into one duffle bag. I didn’t even have different clothes for summer and winter, just a pair of green shorts and yellow pants that I wore both in snow and extreme humidity. Plus a pink polo shirt with green frogs on it.
Sometimes I still find it challenging to deal with the responsibility of material possessions, but that is life. It is better to be crushed alive by heaviness than to go insane from extreme lightness. Isn’t it?
At any rate, this song is an expression of the ache I felt after turning my home into a business office.
A previous redecoration, where I decided everything needed to be painted green, even Slippers. The poster on the wall is from an earlier decorating scheme where all walls were covered with pictures of water. I don’t know why I felt the need to constantly redecorate, but living in a house has forced me to put that mania behind me, at least a little.
And before you call Slippers fat (as people did at the time) remember that she had just spent the summer in solitary confinement, after getting hit by a car, with nothing to do but eat kibble all day. This photo was right after we adopted her.
As I’ve said before, I never know what to say about songs. I don’t think they have literal meanings and yet it feels so haughty to say nothing at all. So, I will say I believe this song was inspired by my experiences with spirituality combined with the woozy feelings of spring.
My spiritual experiences have mostly involved the complete subjugation of myself to another person. This is why I got married the first time. First, I had to go on a private retreat with my spiritual guide to achieve enlightenment (I was a teenager at the time, so it seemed to make sense.) Then of course while driving me to the “retreat” (which turned out to be the basement of his parents’ house) he had to grab my crotch to subjugate my ego. Things degenerated from there until a few days later I had to marry him since I had now touched his naked body which was too pure to be touched out of wedlock.
I don’t think my experiences are unusual, but just what you should expect when dealing with a Spiritual Person. When you see Spiritual Things going on, rest assured there is something dark and perverted behind the curtain.
But why? I don’t know. Maybe because humans can’t be spiritual. It isn’t real. The spiritual world is something we connect to- just like we connect to dogs and plants- but not something we can embody.
If it wasn’t unpopular to do so, I would want to warn people away from all Buddhist & Hindu spin-off movements practiced in America. “Eastern Religions” as we call them. It is not the religions in their natural environment I object to. Even though my degree is in Tibetan Buddhism, I think it is hard, maybe impossible to understand the role religion is playing in another culture, so I don’t have an opinion on whether these religions are good or bad in faraway places. (Although I can say, the history of Tibetan Buddhism is basically a blood bath.) But I do object to the form I see these movements taking in America. I have been involved with a number of them, and while I understand how they excite people with the promise of new horizons, I have never seen them play out well for anyone in the long run. Even meditation (I used to practice Transcendental Meditation) is, in my opinion, better left alone.
My involvement in these realms did lead to many of what you might call spiritual, blissful and transcendent experiences. But I imagine a person could have many of these same experiences from doing drugs. Drugs would probably be preferable to the extent that the person would realize there was a recreational, escapist quality to these states of mind, rather than believing they were rising up to a higher spiritual plane.
One problem with all Spiritual things, from meditation to Christianity is that they tend to create a ricochet between two polarities- good and bad, bliss and suffering, etc. The more a person attempts to bind themselves to one side of this polarity, the stronger the other side grows. But since you are attempting to identify yourself only with the positive side, the negative side gets projected or suppressed until take on a life of its own. Like a poltergeist. One way this can play out is the “spiritual” person becomes a magnet to the dark people who now balance them out. That is how things played for me.
Anyway, here are a few more problems I have with Americanized Eastern Spirituality.
The subjugation of the ego: We have an ego for a reason. It is our self-interested mind. If anyone wants to help you transcend your ego, run as fast as you can. You may as well get a lobotomy.
The denigration of thought: These religions will subtly- or overtly- push the idea that thoughts are a negative thing to be transcended. An impurity of some sort. The guru will humbly giggle about how we all have thoughts- they are nothing to be ashamed of- and yet- let’s just try to gently push them to the side a little, shall we? Thoughts are clouds which block the sky of Pure Awareness. For a long time, I tried to restrict my thinking due to this pernicious influence. When at last I managed to release this notion and feel good about thinking to my heart’s content, my life filled up with color.
Navel gazing: As a rule, I think people are better off striving for external goals than internal ones. Survival demands it. Families and communities rely on it. Navel gazing seems especially harmful to men. Males have a lot of energy that needs to radiate outwards. If they try to fold that energy within themselves, through meditation for example, they become pent-up and angry. You see this a lot in long term meditators. Poke their peace bubble and they explode. Women, on the other hand, are built to hold energy inside like a pool. But meditation is bad for them as well because it focuses on the mind and stillness, whereas women really need the freedom to feel and express their full range of emotions.
Disconnection: Ultimately, a meditator’s life becomes all about themselves. They live in a little bubble and focus on controlling the weather within that bubble. Their goal is essentially their own personal happiness. And though they succeed at feeling high and connected to the universe, it is still a different feeling from the more thick and liquid connections we are meant to have with other humans. A deeper form of happiness arises, I think, when a person no longer cares about their own happiness, their own psychological state, but is focused on goals which transcend their subjective reality. Paradoxically, caring less about your own state of mind is probably the truest way to uplift it.
Gurus and spiritual leaders: All I can say is do not touch these people with a 10 foot pole unless you want to get fucked hard. The strange thing is, you WILL have spiritual experiences around these people. I don’t know why that happens. Maybe it is self-hypnosis. Maybe they have absorbed so much blood and energy from their previous victims that it gives them a form of radiant power. But walk away. You don’t need these experiences. Regular life is more supernatural than any of these spiritual things. We are just so used to it that we forget. At the very least, hire a detective prior to any contact with a spiritual person. He will find bodies. Guaranteed.
Anyway this is just my opinion, and I know there are exceptions to everything. Someone out there was born to meditate, just like some of us were born to swim with sharks or bury ourselves alive. But when people push the idea that everyone should have a meditation practice, I want to hurl. Just get a second job delivering pizzas. Or learn to build houses. Our minds are already working the way they should. We don’t need to tamper with them.
To swing, to fight
A world at night
To shake, to weep
A world asleep.
They sleep, I see
No one touches me
They think I don’t know
The place where all the children go.
Paw Paw the ringing boy
When spring comes he will bring you so much joy.
Paw Paw the ringing boy
When summer comes then the world will fade away.
These things A world of strings But look, you’ll see The world is me.
Alien, okay I don’t care what they say I am bought and sold Although he is very old.
Paw Paw the ringing boy When spring comes he will bring you so much joy. Paw Paw the ringing boy When summer comes then the world will fade away.
Your needs A string of beads I dance, I twirl A milk white pearl.
Worlds fade, worlds end I dance, I spin No one touches me Except for spirituality.
Paw Paw the ringing boy When spring comes he will bring you so much joy. Paw Paw the ringing boy When summer comes then the world will fade away.
A song… I guess… about my love for men who are boring on the outside but shady* on the inside- like detectives… or maybe it is a song about my love for the gray clouds and fog that hang over West Virginia in the early spring. All I know for certain is that I wrote this song while thinking about the constellation Scorpio in a bathtub… sometimes when I am feeling down or lost I will choose a constellation to think about to cheer me up… and the moon was in Scorpio at the time, which is why I chose it, maybe. I was in the bathtub because it was the only bathing device in the house, the house being from 1907. However, a shower head has just been installed, so life is more normal now.
*Secretive, I mean. I secretly admire people who have that quality, because I usually end up spilling all the contents of my mind, whether I mean to or not.
You could be my dark man Stranger in the park man Standing in your trench coat flashing Stars above but somethings crashing down
You could be my shady friend
Standing where the street lights end
Shadows fall always behind you
No one seeks and no one finds you now
Clouds stretch so far away
Endless worlds of endless grey
Walk before me and I’l follow you
This road leads us to tomorrow, true?
Clouds takes shape but they always lie
We’ll get bored but we’ll never die
Lay your hand upon my head now
Lead me through the fog and dread now
You could be my shadow man
To offer me your white bread hand
Shelling peanuts with your finger
A dusty feeling I remember now
Life can be so many things
Sometimes swirling like a dream
Sometimes flat I’m trapped inside it
Close my eyes but they won’t hide it
Half alive but that’s okay
The other half is filled with gray
Eyes are reaching through the fog and lace
From another world I can almost place
You could be my answer man
A book to dull to understand
A slice of bread upon my plate
The rusty and forgotten gate to now.
