HUMAN WRECKAGE

“Waiting for that Day”

These past weeks I’ve been immersed in a fictional world. Another set of revisions to another manuscript. Ann, who has graciously and voluntarily shouldered the boring burden of reading, rereading and then rereading my stuff has some concerns about the clarity of scene transitions; we discuss the nature and usage of commas because I love using too many words and running on. Two other friends, published authors both, have flagged some potential flaws and inconsistencies. Still, the overall, albeit limited, response to my work in progress has been tremendously positive.

The premise of Just a Boy Again is a seniors’ residence as high school, baby boomer boys and girls, cliques and breaking rules. The same old stuff we all experienced too many decades ago. “Poor old grandad …” Faces fans will recognize the Lane-Wood song I lifted the title from. My stories are inspired by the stereo. Popular music informed my perception of the world, my place in it and it continues to exert an influence on me. Unrequited love is one of the themes in Just a Boy Again. It’s as universal as aging, as death. Does the agony, real or imagined, ebb with the passage of time? Maybe it gets worse. I’ve been listening to the appropriate music to keep me in that headspace. “Moody food” as Shakespeare wrote.

I used to think the best song about heartbreak acquiescence, the near suicidal acceptance of pain was “It Makes No Difference” by the Band. If we were comparing songs of misery over happy hour drinks, I’d hazard George Michael’s raw, hypnotic lament “Waiting for that Day” – one that will never come. The lyrics are complex (Half these wounds, they are self-inflicted …), evocative of the more sophisticated era of songwriting prior to Beatlemania or Pete Townshend eviscerating himself (Recriminations fester …). Michael sings the title just once, the penultimate line before the song’s coda segues into “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”. A double hook.

Here at home in the Crooked 9 Michael is one of those artists slotted with AC/DC, Queen and Van Halen: I don’t like a lot of his stuff, but what I like I really like. “Faith” from the eponymous album was retro-addictive rockabilly but the rest of the record was something of a trial although nothing like Metal Machine Music. Another song of Michael’s which really got a hold on me was “Freedom 90”, his impossibly infectious declaration of ownership and control over both spheres in his life, personal and professional. But the one that really hooked me was “I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me)”, his duet with Aretha Franklin. Two sublime voices paying lyrical tribute to Marvin Gaye’s and Tammi Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. River deep, mountain high, the same seemingly insurmountable, ragged-ass terrain Elvis traversed night and day in “Trying to Get to You” (a particular favourite of mine).

“Waiting for that Day” opens with Michael alone on a mountain lost and not just in his thoughts. There’s no “loving letter,” no impetus to move, to swim, to blaze a trail. This is the paralysis of pain cursed with a long memory: Something inside me needs this pain/I know I’ll never see your face again/I’ve got to be strong now …

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. My companion site www.megeoff.com is awake and alive. Watch and listen to some of the songs I co-wrote with The Muster Point Project or buy 5 KG, the complete EP. Of course, you can still purchase my latest book Of Course You Did in your preferred format from your preferred e-retailer.