Dancing like the King of the Eyesores

Some things can't really be explained. Unfortunately for me, one thing I've never been able to explain is the deep sadness that infects me regularly. Only people who know me well even know this dull ache exists at all - it manifests itself usually as just irresponsible, callous or mean-spirited behaviour.

One of the reasons I started writing was that I wanted to find a way to describe this feeling that I have, that dominates me in my weaker moments. After all, my life is nothing so much as a story of running frantically from this feeling as if it were a burning building, then crawling back inside it like a child returning to the womb.

Grabbing hold of that ancestral yearning has proved much more difficult than I could have ever imagined. When I read old work of mine, I can see the truth I'm trying to excavate dancing just below the page, visible to me but hidden from everyone else.

In other words, through writing I've found a way to describe where I already am, not a way to get where I want to be. There may be a lesson there somewhere.

But never mind all that. Today I bring you a tiny window into the morphine that splashes in my heart when I'm "in it." It's an oldish song from a newish movie, a movie that could have been great, but in the end was just good. The director couldn't finish it off, probably because the material was too close to home, and too far from the truth.

Selah.

Behold The Shins' "New Slang."

And because the diction can be tough, here's the key so you can follow along:

Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth.
Only, i don't know how they got out, dear.
Turn me back into the pet that i was when we met.
I was happier then with no mind-set.

And if you'd 'a took to me like
A gull takes to the wind.
Well, i'd 'a jumped from my tree
And i'd a danced like the king of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries.
Hope it's right when you die, old and bony.
Dawn breaks like a bull through the hall,
Never should have called
But my head's to the wall and i'm lonely.

And if you'd 'a took to me like
A gull takes to the wind.
Well, i'd 'a jumped from my tree
And i'd a danced like the kind of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

God speed all the bakers at dawn may they all cut their thumbs,
And bleed into their buns 'till they melt away.

I'm looking in on the good life i might be doomed never to find.
Without a trust or flaming fields am i too dumb to refine?
And if you'd 'a took to me like
Well i'd a danced like the queen of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.