rockaction
Footballguy
So I'm in Starbucks getting a coffee and over the loudspeakers comes "Hey There Delilah." The song by the Plain White T's. You probably all remember it. It's that acoustic/emo song from the aughts that got played a thousand times on modern rock radio and other formats.
Hey There Delilah
Anyway, aside from it being an emo song, it holds a backstory for me. See, I have a friend whose mother and father made him grow up in a suspicious and inauspicious way. They were drug addicts. His mother was a crack prostitute. You know that scene in South Park when Cartman's mother is in Crack Whore Magazine? Well, my other friend looks at me one night and goes, "That's [X]'s Mom." I laughed, thinking he was just giving him typical twenty-something ####, but he goes, "No, that's [X]'s Mom." X chimes in and goes, "Yeah, that's a difficult story." So they explain it to me. How she was a crack whore. How he'd seen things few people had seen growing up, like things like watching all his presents constantly disappear, getting chained to a radiator, forced molestation, all sorts of crazy stuff that's almost too horrible for print and better served rushed through.
Anyway, he had somehow emancipated himself at the age of sixteen and went to live with his grandparents in CT. And went to boarding school. And met my friend. Who lived across the street from me. When I moved home at twenty-eight back to CT from D.C., I began hanging out with both of them.
We became all good friends, and as the years went on, he and my friend took up with serious girlfriends, one of who would become my friend's wife, one of whom we'll get to.
That one is K. She became X's girlfriend, was from a small town in Eastern CT, and had shared a similarly rough upbringing. So her and K were naturals for each other. Anyway, they dated for ten years before X broke up with her, went to therapy, got a steady job, and became an IPO beneficiary recently.
So anyway, the song? K had given X a shirt one birthday. She knew we liked a White band. Not knowing it was the White Stripes, she had given him a Plain White T's shirt. He didn't have the heart to correct her, so he would wear the shirt. We made unbridled fun of him, but didn't tell her, either, because it was a stupid shirt and why make somebody feel bad over it. So anyway, one day the song is playing and we're making fun of him and he, with his wicked sense of humor goes, "Yeah, with my proceeds from the pawn shop." We sort of were struck by the moment, and wondered what the hell he meant. He goes, "The lyrics man, listen to them."
Hey there Delilah
I know times are getting hard
But just believe me one day I'll pay the bills with this guitar
We'll have it good
We'll have the life I knew we would
My word is good
"Oh," we went. And all started laughing about this poor guy's shattered dreams and making his promise good by pawning the guitar. But we'd never really listened to the lyrics.
So today, I'm in Starbucks, and the song comes on. And there's a kid, no more than twenty, and he knows the song. And he's singing along almost under his breath, careful not to disturb the customers. And I begin to listen to the lyrics again. And I realize this guy has poured his heart out in the song, in almost a cynical manipulation of emotions or just pure genius. Who knows? But I'm listening, and knowing the song and how big it became he seemed prescient
Hey there Delilah
I've got so much left to say
If every simple song I wrote to you would take your breath away
I'd write it all
Even more in love with me you'd fall
We'd have it all
So I'm sitting there, thinking about me and my friends in our thirties and now forties, how X is no longer with K, who gave him the t-shirt, X whose outlook on life is going to be cynical but will at least hear you out like he heard out the guy in a teeny bopper song, and I just lose it. Well, not really. I've got shades on in the store. But I am welling up with tears, and it strikes me that to everybody looking, I'm a guy in his forties, still not grey necessarily, but getting up there in years, and I'm crying to "Hey There Delilah," which is admittedly a sort of emo manipulation of the highest order, in the middle of a chain store of which there are five in my town, and everybody looking at me must be creating their own narrative about what leads an older guy to do that in the middle of a store. Mind you, they can't see me, but this is in my head.
And I realize that there will never, ever be a critic that can do quite what an artist can do. And that's my takeaway from all this. In the words of an intro to a Chief XCel song. It's called "Multitude," and it was on an Astralwerks electronica compilation a long time ago. It's really a very worthy electronica track if you're into that sort of stuff.
https://youtu.be/w5TfvSmyyac
But what strikes me is about halfway in, where a sampled voice intones:
Only an artist can tell
And only artists have told
Since we have heard of man
What it is like for anyone who gets this planet
To survive it
What it is like to die
Or to have somebody die
What is like to see a death
What it is like to fear
What it is like to love
Point proved and rammed home, yet again.
And that's my emo moment for the day. I'm doing fine by the way. Just a thought in case anybody wanted to read it.
Hey There Delilah
Anyway, aside from it being an emo song, it holds a backstory for me. See, I have a friend whose mother and father made him grow up in a suspicious and inauspicious way. They were drug addicts. His mother was a crack prostitute. You know that scene in South Park when Cartman's mother is in Crack Whore Magazine? Well, my other friend looks at me one night and goes, "That's [X]'s Mom." I laughed, thinking he was just giving him typical twenty-something ####, but he goes, "No, that's [X]'s Mom." X chimes in and goes, "Yeah, that's a difficult story." So they explain it to me. How she was a crack whore. How he'd seen things few people had seen growing up, like things like watching all his presents constantly disappear, getting chained to a radiator, forced molestation, all sorts of crazy stuff that's almost too horrible for print and better served rushed through.
Anyway, he had somehow emancipated himself at the age of sixteen and went to live with his grandparents in CT. And went to boarding school. And met my friend. Who lived across the street from me. When I moved home at twenty-eight back to CT from D.C., I began hanging out with both of them.
We became all good friends, and as the years went on, he and my friend took up with serious girlfriends, one of who would become my friend's wife, one of whom we'll get to.
That one is K. She became X's girlfriend, was from a small town in Eastern CT, and had shared a similarly rough upbringing. So her and K were naturals for each other. Anyway, they dated for ten years before X broke up with her, went to therapy, got a steady job, and became an IPO beneficiary recently.
So anyway, the song? K had given X a shirt one birthday. She knew we liked a White band. Not knowing it was the White Stripes, she had given him a Plain White T's shirt. He didn't have the heart to correct her, so he would wear the shirt. We made unbridled fun of him, but didn't tell her, either, because it was a stupid shirt and why make somebody feel bad over it. So anyway, one day the song is playing and we're making fun of him and he, with his wicked sense of humor goes, "Yeah, with my proceeds from the pawn shop." We sort of were struck by the moment, and wondered what the hell he meant. He goes, "The lyrics man, listen to them."
Hey there Delilah
I know times are getting hard
But just believe me one day I'll pay the bills with this guitar
We'll have it good
We'll have the life I knew we would
My word is good
"Oh," we went. And all started laughing about this poor guy's shattered dreams and making his promise good by pawning the guitar. But we'd never really listened to the lyrics.
So today, I'm in Starbucks, and the song comes on. And there's a kid, no more than twenty, and he knows the song. And he's singing along almost under his breath, careful not to disturb the customers. And I begin to listen to the lyrics again. And I realize this guy has poured his heart out in the song, in almost a cynical manipulation of emotions or just pure genius. Who knows? But I'm listening, and knowing the song and how big it became he seemed prescient
Hey there Delilah
I've got so much left to say
If every simple song I wrote to you would take your breath away
I'd write it all
Even more in love with me you'd fall
We'd have it all
So I'm sitting there, thinking about me and my friends in our thirties and now forties, how X is no longer with K, who gave him the t-shirt, X whose outlook on life is going to be cynical but will at least hear you out like he heard out the guy in a teeny bopper song, and I just lose it. Well, not really. I've got shades on in the store. But I am welling up with tears, and it strikes me that to everybody looking, I'm a guy in his forties, still not grey necessarily, but getting up there in years, and I'm crying to "Hey There Delilah," which is admittedly a sort of emo manipulation of the highest order, in the middle of a chain store of which there are five in my town, and everybody looking at me must be creating their own narrative about what leads an older guy to do that in the middle of a store. Mind you, they can't see me, but this is in my head.
And I realize that there will never, ever be a critic that can do quite what an artist can do. And that's my takeaway from all this. In the words of an intro to a Chief XCel song. It's called "Multitude," and it was on an Astralwerks electronica compilation a long time ago. It's really a very worthy electronica track if you're into that sort of stuff.
https://youtu.be/w5TfvSmyyac
But what strikes me is about halfway in, where a sampled voice intones:
Only an artist can tell
And only artists have told
Since we have heard of man
What it is like for anyone who gets this planet
To survive it
What it is like to die
Or to have somebody die
What is like to see a death
What it is like to fear
What it is like to love
Point proved and rammed home, yet again.
And that's my emo moment for the day. I'm doing fine by the way. Just a thought in case anybody wanted to read it.
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