| Jim Carroll Band – People Who Died Lyrics | 4 years ago |
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One of my favorite songs of all time. Simultaneously morbid and humorous, poetic and upbeat. It covers many manners of unexpected, premature death, recognizes that death is inevitable, and that a person usually has no control over or say in the deaths of others, or of ourselves. I was deeply saddened when Jim Carroll died back in 2009. It doesn't seem like very long ago, but here we are. Since then I have lost several friends and relatives, mostly to cancers and heart disease. Oddly, this song cheers me up when I am really down. |
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| Jim Carroll Band – People Who Died Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| @[roger:37586] wilco The older you get, the more that happens. | |
| Jim Carroll Band – People Who Died Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| @[roger:37585] wilco The older you get, the more that happens. | |
| Bob Dylan – Lay Lady Lay Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| This song has grown on me over the decades. I didn't "get it" when I was young, now it moves me to tears of joy with the soothing tone of his voice (unlike any other Dylan song,) the alliteration, the humility, the shifts in voice from second to third person and back. He doesn't mind shifting time around either - "I long to see you in the morning light" would seem to naturally happen AFTER "I long to reach for you in the night," but as poetry it flows so beautifully in the order presented. Thanks Bob! | |
| Lou Reed – Perfect Day Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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This song has haunted me since I realized I had to have my elderly cat euthanized. The "day" was his entire life - I got him when he as a tiny kitten, just weaned. He lived his entire life with me, and I always took excellent care of him. He was glad he spent it with me, and vice-versa. We did mundane things together, kept each other going through lonely times. I was much better as a cat dad than as a real step-parent. With him I was someone good. I put him down last week. It got dark, we went home. |
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| George Jones – He Stopped Loving Her Today Lyrics | 12 years ago |
| RIP George Jones. | |
| The Zombies – She's Not There Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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Thanks for your comment akulkis. I believe you were correct. Here's a follow-up: On January 31, 2012, 19 days after I posted my comment, I got a call from the local police asking if I knew where the woman was. I told them I hadn't seen her since she moved out of my place in December 2011. Later that day one of her brothers called to tell me she had taken her own life. Of course I felt horrible about it, but I have some training in crisis intervention which told me that 1) It wasn't my fault and 2) That I should seek help for myself. I had nightmares for several months, and all of the other normal symptoms of loss and grief. Yes, her condition was BPD. The psychiatrists at the county hospital had referred her to a clinic that specializes in Dialectical Behavior Therapy and given her a prescription for anti-depressant medication. They issued her a cell phone, paid for a month, and gave her a stack of self-help materials and referrals. She didn't do her follow-up therapy. The big take-away for me are a much better ability to spot personality disorders, and a better idea what I want and deed in a relationship. She really, truly was not there. RIP. |
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| The Zombies – She's Not There Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The song says a lot with only a few lines of content. The author had a good understanding of a kind of mental illness that is tragically common but can be very difficult to detect until you get close enough to the person to get yourself burned. The song has been haunting me since it happened to me. She was my neighbor the late 1960s when we were both kids. I never got to know her very well back then, but her two brothers were good friends for a while in our teens. I saw and heard little of her until a class reunion several years ago. We connected and started dating. Eventually she warmed up to me. I always thought of her as highly intelligent (and I still do,) stable and mature. As a young woman she was was blessed with a near-supermodel appearance. At age 40 she even considered getting into modeling, and had some test photo shoots done. But by her early 50s the inevitable effects of age had put some wrinkles on her face, and she developed a chronic skin condition that damaged her formerly clear complexion. I didn't care about that because when she smiled she seemed to give off the kind of glow that comes from inner peace and contentment that you sometimes see in older people. But as it turns out, her whole ego and what she thought was her center was totally dependent on feeling that she was attractive. She became moody and depressed, but managed to hide that from me until she moved in to my house. She wouldn't go out, wouldn't do anything for me or with me. She complained bitterly about tidiness and cleanliness, but wouldn't so much as pick up a broom and sweep the floor. She expected me to do everything, and became more and more insulting as weeks went by. She dropped many hints that she was suicidal, but there was nothing I could do until finally I found her lying in bed with a bitter suicide note attached to a box of things she had set aside for her sister, including an album with the modeling test photos. I discretely called 911. The police came, and took her to the county psychiatric hospital. They kept her there for more than a week, after which I evicted her and her stuff. Since then her brothers and a couple of her friends have confided in me that they were not surprised by the melt-down. They'd thrown me a few hints, but the family was always very tight-lipped about their business. She has some kind of major disturbance such as Narcissistic or Borderline Personality Disorder. These are very serious problems that have a lot to do with self-identity. None of them told me about her, and they literally all knew! |
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