I did not know him, I did not know this character who was shirtless in his fringe vest and his moccasins.  I did not know him.

No.

But he stood there, without socks and smiled at me with his blonde hair slicked back and his brown beard neatly trimmed.  His eyes twinkled and he smiled a smile that showed all of his teeth.  He said nothing, but he handed me a little golden key… not merely a key that was golden in color, but a key of shining, gleaming gold.

I had been drinking, you see, drinking far too much… far too much since I had learned of my impending eviction and my lack of funds to prevent this course of action.

Shit.

He did, however finally turn to me and half whisper, on his way out,

“Find the song… Find… the… song.”

I didn’t know what he meant.

I knew things, I should say, I knew things about music that were important.  I knew never to buy a new guitar, unless it was built for you, because rock and roll was about soul and soul was something you could not buy but had to earn with sweat and rusty, rusty frets.  I knew that the best amplifiers were no longer on the market and were discovered in flea markets and garage sales and had dust deeply embedded in the tolex.

I knew that the best drummers had the smallest kits and that the best musicians knew how to mock themselves…

I knew this because I lived it.

Since I was fifteen, when my family had been forced to move into a tiny three bedroom apartment that cost $600 a month and in our malaise of living on top of and into and around each other, when I was ostracized and angry at them all (my family and the world), I could listen to the five records I owned over and over and over again:

Start Today - Gorilla Biscuits

Steady Diet of Nothing - Fugazi

Ride the Lightning - Metallica

Low End Theory - A Tribe Called Quest

24 Hour Revenge Therapy - Jawbreaker

Even though the nineties marched on and more albums would lift me, those were the ones that taught me… everything.  I stayed up late reading the liner notes and learning which bands I should love.

I did not know this man.

I did not know this man.

I wanted to find it.

I thought that perhaps the song was loud, perhaps it was brash, so I went to a metal show… but the kids there were all dressed in black, in costumes of battle jackets covered in patches from Slayer and Goatwhore and Early Man and they were not the song.  They forgot that Slayer had released ten years of bad albums and they forgot that being anything but themselves was an affront to rock and roll.

They lost the rhythm in concern with looking intimidating.

They had no song.

I went to a hip-hop show, looking for the verve the metal kids lacked and all I found was auto-tuned drivel.  Rhymes that were iambic in nature and focused on the cheapest, most bottom line images of sex and drugs and money and… power.

They had no song.

So I went to a punk show, where I thought the passion would carry the four chords and they, they had no song.  They were tight jeans and haircuts and horrible tattoos and they had no song.

No song.

I found a girl with purple hair, buying a leopard print thong, but she had no song.  She had revenge on her mind and her appearance was an affront to the world and it was not, was not the song.

I wanted the song.

I tried ska, I tried hardcore, I tried folk, I tried trip-hop and I found no song.

I wandered the streets alone, I rode a bicycle through traffic and I found no song.

Where was the song?

I sat down, in my despair, I sat down with a forty of malt liquor beer and aimed my hand at the sky and cried out as the light lit the golden lager up.

“Fuck it, I have no fucking song!”

It was heart aches.  It was head aches.  It was a lifetime of being alone and wanting what I could not have.  It wasn’t money, it was love and the want therefore of that kept me looking for the song.  I wanted to sing it, I wanted to be it, I just wanted to feel like I belonged.  She left me and I lost my job.  I cried everynight to a god that may or may not be real and I wanted to find the song.

I didn’t care about fashion.  I didn’t care about looks.  I just wanted to find the song.

If I could find it and make the chords with my hand, the G major and E minor and D7 strong.  Whatever it was, if I could play it, a solo, a tiny lead line.  The thread of a harmonic minor scale, a palm muted refrain, if I could find it… if it came from my hands… if it came from your hands…

I wanted a song.

I sat and I wept, on that curb in the growing dark, on a Saturday in August when all seems but lost.

And he sat down, the hippie, who left me this key.

He smiled and said that he had a present for me.

He pulled out a box and I unlocked it with my key.  He pulled out an iPod and left me to see.

I pushed play and what did I hear.

Songs upon songs.

Pure fucking joy to my ears.

Jawbreaker played Boxcar and I shouted along.  Violent Femmes played Kiss Off and I air strummed.  Hot Water Music played Turnstiles and I shouted to the sky.  Tribe played Can I Kick It and I lost my mind.  Botch covered Rock Lobster and made me smile.  Pulp played Common People and I stood in that grocery line.  Jeff Mangum sung in a closet in Denver about the King of Carrot Flowers.  John Reis broke down the groove and Rocketed From the Crypt.

I wanted more.

Somehow, these were the songs.

The music moved my soul and opened my mind and the lyrics came in and set things to fire.

This is all that I want for any of you.

Find your songs, the music that means everything, every damn thing to you.

I may not like it, but that doesn’t matter.  It really doesn’t matter at all.  Find your own music.  Find your own song.

February 5th, 2010 | Category: WTF | Subscribe to comments | Both comments and pings are currently closed