I-Tunes Strikes Again

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A long time ago, in another man's body, at a college about an hour and a half from here I had to make a video where I lip-synched a song. I could have chosen any song, but there was one that just tore me apart.

After a little back and forth I used my Christmas gift to buy the album on I-Tunes and I played the song for my boy.

The Final Cut by Pink Floyd.

"Why the heck would you listen to that?" Sam wondered. "The guy wants to kill himself."

The Final Cut

Through the fish-eyed lens of tear-stained eyes
I can barely define the shape of this moment in time
And far from flying high in the clear blue skies
I'm spiraling down to the hole in the ground
where I hide.

If you negotiate the minefield in the drive
And beat the dog and cheat the cold electronic eyes
And if you make it past the shotguns in the hall
Dial the combination, open the priesthole
And if I'm in, I'll tell you.

There's a kid who had a big hallucination
Making love to girls in magazines
He wonders if you're sleeping with your new found faith
Could anybody love him?
Or is it just a crazy dream?

And if I show you my dark side, will you still hold me tonight?
And if I open my heart to you,
and show you my weak side,
What will you do?

Will you sell your story to Rolling Stone?
Will you take the children away and leave me alone?
And smile in reassurance as you whisper down the phone.
Would you send me packing?
Or would you take me home?

I thought I oughta' bare my naked feelings.
I thought I oughta' tear the curtain down.

I held the blade in trembling hands
prepared to make it
But
just then the phone rang.
I never had the nerve
to make the final cut.

Sam was looking at me kind of weird as I sang every word to a song that I haven't heard in twenty years.

"It's the writing," I said.

And the song struck me the same as a 48-year-old as it did as an 18-year-old.

"It's so depressing," Sam said as he walked away.

But looking at the words and reading them over and over again it dawned on me that it was still just perfect.

So many thoughts, such beautiful emotion. Every single word fits.

After all the words I've written. I felt alive in the craft again.

A song about thinking about giving up had the same influence as it always had.

It fired me up to go forward full blast.

Roger Waters is a genius.

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