Look Out Mama

There’s a white boat comin’ down the river. With a big red beacon and a flag, and a man on the rail. I think you’d better call John ’cause it don’t look like they’re here to deliver the mail.

About
Author Ken Bielen compares Powderfinger to film noir because the narrator has died before the song begins, and notes that the song “has remained in high regard over the decades.”  Bielen regards the theme as “the tragic and wasteful loss of youth to conflicts between countries and their leaders.”

More great music at Rancho Radio (on Apple Music).

Birds and Snakes and Aeroplanes, Part 28

“I’m better off with my friends.”

Life in the time of Coronavirus is hard. I’ve been quarantined since June 23, after somehow having 4 exposures in 4 days. I got a test, but they say it will take 3-5 business days. I’ve watched all the above average TV shows. I’m profoundly bored. I don’t have much to say anymore. Let the words be yours, I’m done with mine, and so forth.

I’ve been looking for a song that sums up how I feel. About life. Isolation. Fighting with people on Facebook over masks. Missing my kids. Wondering if they miss me. Wondering if I’m doing right by the good people who work beside me in my office.

I think this might be it.

The Four Best Songs, Ever

So my best songs ever list changes like the weather. But these four have been up there for a while. So there.

This is the best song ever written. I’m certain of this. What an amazing thing it must be to feel this way about another person. Or to have someone feel like this about you.

This is probably the second best song ever written. I’ve felt this way for a while.

And number three. Three.

And the way I should have felt every time I left some place I used to be.

Birds and Snakes and Aeroplanes, Part 26

“It sickened me yesterday to see security personnel—including members of the National Guard—forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president’s visit outside St. John’s Church. I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump’s leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent.”

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Birds and Snakes and Aeroplanes, Part 25

“As a rough average, during pre-pandemic life, 5 to 7 percent of people met the criteria for a diagnosis of depression. Now, depending how you define the condition, orders of magnitude more people do. Robert Klitzman, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, extrapolates from a recent Lancet study in China to estimate that about 50 percent of the U.S. population is experiencing depressive symptoms. ‘We are witnessing the mental-health implications of massive disease and death,’ he says. This has the effect of altering the social norm by which depression and other conditions are defined. Essentially, this throws off the whole definitional rubric.”

Remember the words of all the prophets,
wise men, fools, the weary and blind
Remember the innocence of days gone by,
the cruelest joke, now plagued by time
It’s getting dark, it’s getting cold,
it’s getting late and the pages keep on turning
So hit bombs and light it up, enjoy the ride,
for the fires, they will be burning

Birds and Snakes and Aeroplanes, Part 24

“The second day I was sick, I woke up to what felt like hot tar buried deep in my chest. I could not get a deep breath unless I was on all fours. I’m healthy. I’m a runner. I’m 33 years old.”

“I want Americans to understand that this virus is making otherwise young, healthy people very, very sick. I want them to know, this is no flu.”

Oh, a storm is threat’ning
My very life today
If I don’t get some shelter
Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away
War, children, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away
War, children, it’s just a shot away
It’s just a shot away

Birds and Snakes and Aeroplanes, Part 23

“And yet, accusing a cable news host of murder is not the most insane thing that happened in Trump world over the last 24 hours. That would be his meltdown yesterday at a press conference, in which he abruptly walked off after a couple of “nasty” reporters (women, obviously) asked him harder questions than he wished to answer.”

Mmmm, let’s get rid of that old man, hey-ey-ey,
And bring our government up to date.
It may seem very hard to do,
Just open your mind, let love come through.

Birds and Snakes and Aeroplanes, Part 22

“Every day, I ask him to tell me about something he knows that I don’t. What is that bird calling in the hedge? How does a meadowlark learn to sing? How does soap kill a virus? Where does courage come from? The only question he hasn’t been able to answer is: How will I live without you?”

I feel like something ain’t right
And maybe it’s only me
I’m sure that later you’ll find
That everyone else can see
That I am on my way
But I ain’t gonna stay