This is not my tune, but it’s mine to use.
“This is not my tune, but it’s mine to use.”
All the following is very sad and you may be better to wait for a different version of this same post that I do believe will have some merit. As will be self evident, I intend to iterate, but the following paragraph just seems urgent to me tonight.
I’ve been strangling (or maybe throttling is the proper term) an article I’ve wanted to make for months. Sometimes great art is horrible philosophy. Contrary to popular belief, this does not unmake it great art. …but a great chemist knows the intimate details of many substances while he only drinks a very select few of them.
Anyway, here is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard. It is wrong. By this, I’m not saying sad content is bad. Lots of great philosophy has depressing implications. But the philosophy behind the message in this song is actually flawed and destructive. However, it hits me hard as I reflect on some folks I’ve lost over the years, as it may for you too. It is great art. Curiously, I also grew up with a dog named Sadie, that my parents had to put down after a violent incident.
The pics below are just other moments from my week adding to the dark mood…and they’re beautiful as well. I don’t think they convey any overtly bad philosophy, but I can’t speak to their merit one way or the other.
But please, if anyone is up and reading, I share this poison for you to observe, not to drink. If you’re up at this hour, maybe take a look, ponder, and reflect more in the sober light of day.
Sadie, white coat
You carry me home
And bury this bone
And take this pine-cone
Bury this bone to gnaw on it later;
Gnawing on the telephone
And 'till then, we pray and suspend
The notion that these lives do never end
And all day long we talk about mercy:
Lead me to water, Lord, I sure am thirsty
Down in the ditch where I nearly served you
Up in the clouds where he almost heard you
And all that we built
And all that we breathed
And all that we spilt, or pulled up like weeds
Is piled up in back
And it burns irrevocably
(And we spoke up in turns
'Till the silence crept over me)
And bless you
And I deeply do
No longer resolute oh
And I call to you
But the water
Got so cold
And you do lose
What you don't hold
This is an old song, these are old blues
And this is not my tune, but it's mine to use
And the seabirds where the fear once grew
Will flock with a fury
And they will bury what'd come for you
And down where I darn with the milk-eyed mender
You and I, and a love so tender
Stretched on a hoop where I stitch - this adage:
"Bless our house and its heart so savage"
And all that I want
And all that I need
And all that I've got is scattered like seed
And all that I knew is moving away from me
(And all that I know is blowing
Like tumbleweed)
And the mealy worms
In the brine will burn
In a salty pyre
Among the fauns and ferns
And the love we hold
And the love we spurn
Will never grow cold
Only taciturn
And I'll tell you tomorrow
Sadie, go on home now
And bless those who've sickened below
And bless us who've chosen so
And all that I've got
And all that I need
I tie in a knot and I lay at your feet
And I have not forgot, but a silence crept over me
(So dig up your bone
Exhume your pine-cone, my Sadie)