I Write the Songs

You know, I just totally love music. Whenever the day just makes me feel like hammering a nail through my forehead, I just slap that little plastic disc of comfort into my Sony and suddenly I only feel like hammering a nail through everyone else's forehead. Yes, music; it has the... uh... whatever it has... to sooth the savage... um, how the hell does that saying go again? I'll get back to you on this one.

One of the major advantages of my current so-called "yob" is that I can listen to all the tunes I want. It's one of those menial, no future, you're the first we're going to lay off kind of jobs, but hey, it gives me the mad money I need to travel the country in my Arrrr-Veeee. Say it with me, just the way Randy Quaid does in Christmas Vacation: "that there's an aaarrrr-VEE."

I'm not sure any of the four people who read this blog (make that three, since disgruntled seems to have dropped off the face of the planet) know it or not, but I'm a founding member of a family of four - five if you count Jake the Feline - who have decided to experience life for all it has to offer, rather than live our lives making someone else rich in the pursuit of more shtuff we can buy on credit.

I have to say I've never been happier. We roll into a town, stay long enough to experience all those things one would never take a vacation to see, then we hoist anchor and move to another town. I oft feel like an explorer of yon past, only the places I go have already been discovered. Still, you know what I mean. Anyway, I'm getting kinda far afield here.

What was I talking about? -scrolling up- That's right, music, and my ability to listen to it while working.

I get to spend the entire workday with my headphones on, since I'm not encumbered with the burden of actually having to give a shit what anyone else in the joint wants me to do. I have a very specific, very narrow, set of job responsibilities:

1. take card "A" from in-box.
2. Enter data from card "A" into computer "B."
3. Return card "A" to out-box "C."
4. Try not to feel too trivial and expendable.
   

Now if I were the ambitious type, I might care that they do things in a manner that's only one small step beyond pressing a beveled reed into a tablet of clay, but see, I'm not the ambitious type. Not anymore, anyway. I come in, slap my headphones on, crank up the tunes, type like a madman for exactly eight hours, then tip my butt right out the door. "Eight -n- Skate," baby; that's me. And since I'm neither in desperate need of a job nor trying to get hired on by the company, this works just fine for me.

But I do have to say the music sometimes gets me into the groove and while that's great for making the day fly by, it also makes me forget that while I may be able to hear the music in all its rich, robust clarity, I am in fact wearing headphones and therefore am the only one in the office who can hear said music. On the plus side, it's in general agreement that when I sing I sound like Rob Thomas. So I suppose that's good.

When I listen to tunes, I really get into what I'm hearing. I'm one of those people who owns thousands of CDs and would buy another even if it only had one track I knew I'd like. None of this downloading crap for me, especially since when it's downloaded you don't have the same control over it as you do when you own the actual disk.

It's also very common for me, when listening to a CD I've either just bought or haven't heard in a long time, to repeat it over and over again in an effort to learn the words and determine the meaning of the song. Hey, I've never said I have an actual life, have I?

This lyrical education has proven two things to me. One, I can't understand a freaking thing Scott Weiland says and two, I could totally make money as a song writer. I mean, say you want to write one of those artsy-fartsy avant garde songs. You know, the type you hear on open mic night at Starbucks. Just make it damned near incomprehensible and you're there. Something like:

Dawn.
A subway train careens
Down licorice rails.
Hello rabbit.
Is that your tail?
Or has the man spoken?

I dunno, sounds more fartsy to me. Maybe I can go the Nashville route:

My dog and my horse
are my best friends
And my old pickup truck
is the best lover I've had.
I'd give her a ring
and make my heart sing,
But then my girlfriend would get mad.

Or Blues:

Beer, TV and bowling
is all I crave.
A big bag of pork rinds
is gonna carry me to my grave.
Born under a bad sign
Been doooowwwn since
I been able to crawl
If it wasn't' for bad luck
I said I'd have no luck at all.

Or rock?

Different town, different girl
I'm on tour with the devil.
Oh, I'm like Captain Kirk
but I don't do green chicks
and I don't like Tribbles.

Hmmm... I suppose I could just go thrash metal and just scream or mumble a lot.