Songs of Our Selves, Vol. I

Songs of Our Selves

All works herein are copyright their respective authors.

This is a not-for-profit expression of love for art.

No infringement is intended, but if the owners of any copyrights would prefer their work removed, contact the editor:

Zachary Roth zach.e.roth@gmail.com

Songs of Our Selves collected and edited by Zachary Roth

Volume I, Winter 2011

Contents

Preface

by Zach Roth

“Cathedrals” by Lisa Simon

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from “Cathedrals” by Jump, Little Children

“Someday” by Rick Gebhardt

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from “The Helix” by Hands

“Rough Hands” by Zach Roth

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from “Rough Hands” by Alexisonfire

“Through the Dark to Light” by Kryss Jobes

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from “To the Moon and Back” by Savage Garden

“Anyone for Tennis?” by Genevieve Parker from “Anyone for Tennis?” by Eric Clapton

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Preface

“Don’t we remember all the moments we remember the best, Framed in poems and in pictures, sang aloud in refrains?”

— La Dispute, “Why It Scares Me” As an avid and often rabid appreciator of music for the greater half of my life, I understand the profound effect music can have. But as a writer, and an avid and often rabid appreciator of the written word, I’ve always felt attached to the lyrics each artist felt compelled to inseparably attach to their music. Every one of my timeless, favorite albums contain lyrics as remarkable and passionate as the music itself.

My steamy, but miraculously sustained affair with words and my education in poetry are both rooted in song lyrics. While it’s true that it was in school that I was introduced to the written word and the many authors who had mastered it, the first time in my life when I ravenously sought out and consumed a brand of poetry was leafing through pages of song lyrics in old CD sleeves.

I soon understood how words could interlock, how they could manipulate the shape of your mouth when you spoke them, how they could stand the hairs up on the back of your neck when the right

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word “fit” just where it should. It was at that moment that I knew I had to try it for myself, and it was at that moment that any hope of a future in which I wasn’t destitute and living in squalor with books and pages of scribbled words my only loving company. Their art inspired my own.

Art inspires art.

This concept is the driving idea behind Songs of Our Selves. Each contributor has chosen a song, the lyrics of which have impacted them in any variety of meaningful ways, and used these lyrics as the inspiration for an essay, a meditation, a narrative, or a poem of their own. You’ll find an exciting breadth of styles, experiences, and genres.

So read each song’s lyrics. Read each contributor’s piece. Soak them in. Think about how the two interact. And then think about your favorite songs, the ones you can’t help but sing out. Think about what it is you’re singing, and why it resonates with you.

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Songs of Our Selves

Cathedrals

by JUMP, LITTLE CHILDREN

In the shadows of tall buildings, of fallen angels on the ceilings, oily feathers in bronze and concrete, faded colors, pieces left incomplete.

The line moves slowly past the electric fence, across the borders between continents.

In the cathedrals of New York and Rome there is a feeling that you should just go home, and spend a lifetime finding out just where that is.

In the shadows of tall buildings, the architecture is slowly peeling, marble statues and glass dividers, someone is watching all of the outsiders.

The line moves slowly through the numbered gate, past the mosaic of the head of state.

In the cathedrals of New York and Rome there is a feeling that you should just go home, and spend a lifetime finding out just where that is.

In the shadows of tall buildings, of open arches endlessly kneeling, sonic landscapes echoing vistas, someone is listening from a safe distance.

The line moves slowly into a fading light, a final moment in the dead of the night.

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In the cathedrals of New York and Rome there is a feeling that you should just go home, and spend a lifetime finding out just where that is

Cathedrals

by LISA SIMON I pulled the door shut behind my quietly escaping form. I eased the car door open and slid onto the driver’s seat. Worn and comfortable, it creaked slightly under my weight. And his noxious words clung inside my ears – itching and burning.

“Fuck you! I hate you!”

I saw the CD case in the side pocket of my door – along with gum wrappers, a gas receipt and a pen that didn’t want to write anymore. I opened the plastic case with a small click and slipped the CD into the slot. I watched as it was captured and sucked inside. The music erupted immediately. It was loud.

I backed the car up and pulled it forward with a quick jerk. Gravel spit from the tires and sprayed the road as I sped away. We lived on a cul de sac – last house on the left.

“God, I fucking hate him so much!”

When I got to the main road the music had grown even though I hadn’t been listening, its notes throbbing and pulsing with the beating of my heart. It was so loud it almost hurt to listen, but I wanted to obliterate his words.

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I forwarded until I found it – Cathedrals. Its crescendos like breathing.

In and out, in and out, in and out. The nuances caressed me, splayed me open gently. Emotions exposed and gleaming.

In the shadows of tall buildings Of fallen angels on the ceilings I drove. I didn’t know where I was going. I just went – turning from street to street. I drove around for a while. I backtracked to Cathedrals.

In the shadows of tall buildings Of fallen angels on the ceilings I found myself on Route 145, headed toward my parents’ house. They didn’t live there anymore. My dad lost the house after my mom died. I missed my mom. I just wanted to see the house – drive past it. Feel small and safe again.

I drove. I passed exits, but not many. It was so far out of my way, whatever way I was on. It was dark and getting later. His words had faded some. But, I still had that pathetic, “I want to kill myself” feeling – just grab the wheel and turn it into a median.

Marble statues and glass dividers Someone is watching all of the outsiders “Fuck! I don’t fucking want to drive all the way out there! What the fuck is wrong with me? I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing. I just want to go home.”

Sonic landscapes echoing vistas Someone is listening from a safe distance

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My fingers gripped the wheel tightly as I turned off at the next exit.

I’d lost my gumption, although I don’t know if I ever really had any. I was going home. I didn’t know if the words would still be there, but I was exhausted.

I turned onto Vartan Lane – the cul de sac. The car glided toward home. I pulled into the driveway and sat for a moment on the worn, leather front seat. I twisted the key from the ignition and tossed the jingling cluster of them into my purse. The seat creaked slightly as I got up and out. I entered through the front door. He was waiting for me.

In the cathedrals of New York and Rome There is a feeling that you should just go home And spend a lifetime finding out just where that is

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The Helix

by HANDS

I am not alone.

Would you clear the dust from my eyes?

Would you recognize my voice, if I would talk to you?

Oh, I feel so tired, so wake me up.

I believe your hands hold the sun, but in the deepest of my mind I question everything you've done.

Give me rest.

I believe your breath fills my lungs, but it's a thought that's hard to swallow.

I feel ashamed I can't hold on.

Give me rest.

I will take your hand, just lead me through the dark.

I will take your hand, don't ever let me go.

"Be still and know that I am God."

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Someday

by RICK GEBHARDT

In 100 years, I won't be here.

50 years ago, I wasn't here.

But right now... right now I'm here.

That's a sentiment with a very finite, extremely limited lifespan, at least in regard to my saying it. Death comes for us all—this much we know. We feel it, we deny it, we rationalize it; we ignore it, we fear it, then we try to accept it.

Realizing that you have an expiration date… when you first truly swallow that fact, it’s scarring.

You may argue that you lose your innocence the first time you have sex, or the first time you willingly do something hurtful, or the first time you understand that the world is imperfect; but you truly lose your innocence when you realize you don't get to be here forever. You will die.

It's a thought that haunts, that drives, that depresses, and that guides.

Seeing someone gasp their last breath sears you. Even surrounded by friends, loved ones and care-takers, death is faced alone… or so our rational mind tells us.

But if we rationally know this, why do we search for someone to be there with us ethereally? Why do we try to convince ourselves so assuredly that we don't simply end as our body stops? Why does the collective human experience seem to have a spiritual component that

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defines our existence? Are we simply that deluded, or is there something more beyond the rational?

We all will face that moment of truth, alone, as we blink out of existence... or with a god of some form as we move on to our next phase of life.

I don't want to face death alone. Who would?

I don't want to cease to exist. Who would?

I don't want to end. Who would?

So I believe.

But I struggle daily to convince myself that I actually do.

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Rough Hands

by ALEXISONFIRE

Was I left behind? Someone tell me, tell me I survived.

Don't look so surprised that I'm home, but just for tonight, with rough hands and sore eyes, so don't speak, I am tired.

Let's just live through this life.

She says I swear too much. She says a lot of things.

Well I'd swear every other word if I could for her.

I'd make an attempt.

Sometimes love isn't about how much someone suits you, but how much you're willing to change to suit them.

All my bones are dust, (Some people, too damaged, too much, too late.) and my heart's sealed with rust.

(Some people, too damaged, too much, too late.)

These hands will always be rough.

(Some people, too damaged, too much, too late.)

I know this won't count for much.

(Some people, too damaged, too much, too late.)

One day my hands were too soft.

One day she said, “I'm tired.�

One day her clothes were on my floor.

One day, empty bottles.

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Well I'm not saying she's my last, I'm just saying that she could have been.

It doesn't matter how rough these hands get.

It doesn't matter cause I'm not her man.

Rough hands, rough days, rough hands, rough nights, rough hands, rough season, rough hands, rough fights.

Rough Hands

by ZACHARY

ROTH

He had rough hands when I held them in mine: a million little cuts, shredded flecks of skin peppered with age-old dirt that would never wash out, but his fingers made the room spin all around me as they ambled down my cheek, I couldn't cover up my blooming grin; his well-wrinkled palms held deep creases, and I felt his proud callouses on my chin.

He stood stoic in my embrace while in his stocky trunk my fingers took root.

I planted my head in his chest, then, my smile sunk into his lips as glimmering, filtered light.

He had rough hands when I held them in mine, but I softened him, and he held me tight.

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To the Moon and Back

by SAVAGE

GARDEN

She's taking her time, making up the reasons to justify all the hurt inside.

Guess she knows from the smiles and the look in their eyes, everyone's got a theory about the bitter one.

They're saying Mama never loved her much, and Daddy never keeps in touch.

That's why she shies away from human affection.

But somewhere in a private place, she packs her bags for outer space, and now she's waiting for the right kind of pilot to come.

(And she'll say to him) She's saying I would fly you to the moon and back, if you'll be, if you'll be my baby.

Got a ticket for a world where we belong.

So, would you be my baby?

She can't remember a time when she felt needed.

If love was red then she was color-blind.

All her friends they've been trialed for treason and crimes that were never defined.

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But she's saying love is like a barren place, and reaching out for human faith is like a journey I just don't have a map for.

So baby, gonna take a dive and push the shift to overdrive.

Send a signal that she's hanging all her hopes on the stars.

(What a pleasant dream) Just saying I would fly you to the moon and back, if you'll be, if you'll be my baby.

Got a ticket for a world where we belong.

So, would you be my baby?

Through Dark to Light

by KRYSS JOBES

Megan Barker grew up with a distorted childhood. She was vaguely aware that she had had a mother at one point in time, and felt as though she didn’t belong with her father and his new family. She didn’t feel like she really belonged anywhere, so Megan lived as an outsider, with friends of the family and their daughter.

It was a rough time for Megan, living with a family that wasn’t hers.

Jaime, the daughter, was seven years older than her, and didn’t like her much. Jaime always found ways to pick on Megan and get her into trouble, which was easy for her to do since her parents always took

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her side. It was worse when Jaime’s friends were around. So Megan just tried to stay out of the way. She did her best at school, even though she felt that no one liked her, and had no friends. That was okay with Megan though, she had found a way to cope with always being alone. In fact, she enjoyed being alone most of the time. It meant she wasn’t in trouble, and she wasn’t being picked on. Instead, when Megan was alone, she played and imagined great adventures that took her to faraway places— mysterious and wonderful places.

After three years, the family Megan had been staying with started having a lot of troubles and she couldn’t stay with them anymore.

That didn’t upset her though. No, this meant she was finally going to stay with her grandparents for good, the one place she had begun to feel like she belonged. She had enjoyed her weekends with her grandparents for as long as she could remember. Now she looked forward to having that all the time, a whole blissful summer to herself. No getting in trouble for things she didn’t do, no getting picked on. Just an entire summer alone, playing and exploring before starting at a new school with new kids.

Over the summer, Megan’s mother had come back into her life. It didn’t change anything or help Megan any. She really wasn’t sure how she felt about it yet. There was still a lot of confusion to work through when it came to her mother, but before she could make sense of her family and how she felt, it was already time for school to start again.

Megan had been looking forward to it; she hoped it would be better

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than before. She couldn’t wait to meet new friends and have fun. But it didn’t happen quite the way she expected. She had never been good at talking to new people and making friends. It didn’t help that these kids had all known each other already. Once again, she felt like an outsider, but at least this time it wasn’t as bad. The kids weren’t as mean as the ones before had been. She did eventually make some friends.

But soon, inevitably, the trouble came with her teachers. She was always doing something wrong, they thought. Megan just couldn’t understand it. She did her homework and turned it in on time. She was pretty quiet during class. But she couldn’t stop herself from saying something she shouldn’t. She couldn’t keep herself from arguing with the teachers instead of just doing what she was told. It seemed like all her nightmares had followed her. It was worse now though.

Not only was she getting in trouble at school, but she was beginning to have problems at home as well. None of it made any sense to Megan. She didn’t understand why without warning she would get so upset. When she couldn’t explain it, she just became angrier. It wasn’t long before she was overwhelmed with feelings she didn’t understand, and didn’t want. It began to affect how she got along with her grandparents. When she was angry, she would take it out on them, even though deep down she knew they had done nothing wrong. This just made her feel even worse. It became an unrelenting cycle.

Megan was becoming aware of how alone she was, and no longer liked

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the feeling. But still she withdrew from people, and hid her feelings.

She worried that her anger would push everyone too far away.

Instead, she turned to writing. Journal entries filled with pages of rage and confusion. She wrote pleas for help that would go unread.

Books were also a comfort to Megan. She began spending all her free time alone, with a journal, or a book. They were the only things that made it bearable to be alone with her thoughts.

Soon Megan was put in counseling at school. It wasn’t any easier for her to explain there than it was at home. She truly didn’t know what was wrong, and it was hard for her to open up. Eventually the counseling helped the outbursts of uncontrolled rage to level out.

Megan still held the dark feelings within her though, especially when it came to her friends. She enjoyed hanging out with them, and having fun, but she still felt as though they really didn’t like her. She was paranoid, and didn’t trust. She couldn’t really trust anyone.

It wasn’t long after things had seemed to finally be calming down that Megan began having self-destructive tendencies. Summer had once again come, and the same feelings of paranoid loneliness were back, accompanied by feelings of worthlessness. Her mom had left again without telling her anything. It had been difficult for Megan before, but now she couldn’t handle it at all. She began to feel that she just couldn’t do anything right, that no one wanted her. It had to be that, otherwise people wouldn’t continue to abandon her. She developed a hatred for herself and figured that everyone would be better off without her. For Megan, everything in life seemed grim, and there was nothing she could do to change it.

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With this, Megan was put into psychotherapy, with the hope that something could be done to help her get through her problems. She was reluctant at first. She didn’t believe anyone could understand how she felt, and trying to explain only frustrated her. She just wanted to ignore it, to forget it. She felt trapped and desperately wanted to get away.

Everything was a blur. Megan tried her best to just keep up and fit in.

More than ever she relied on the distractions of school, friends, and books. Her journals began to fill with poems that at first she was proud of, but then became afraid to share. Writing had helped her calm down, but she realized not everyone appreciated what she had to say. They didn’t care that she had finally found a way to explain what was going on inside of her. No one except her therapist did, anyway.

Megan’s journals made it easier to open up in her therapy. Finally, she didn’t have to struggle so much. She could just let her therapist read what she had written, and then try her best to answer any questions her therapist had. It wasn’t long before Megan looked forward to going to therapy. She found it enlightening and helpful. She was learning how to understand herself better, and how to deal with stress better. Mostly, she was beginning to feel better.

It didn’t fix everything, but it certainly helped Megan function a little on her own and around others. It also helped her to set goals for herself. She was grateful for that. Goals were the one thing no one could take from her. It gave her perspective. If she didn’t accomplish her goals, she had no one else to blame. Megan eventually realized

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that there were things she may not ever be able to do, but that didn’t keep her from trying. She didn’t like to fail at these things, but she didn’t let them hold her back either.

Megan’s life finally reached a stable point. She learned how to cope with how other people made her feel, and how she made herself feel.

Like everyone, she still had her rough times, but she tried not to let them hold her back. She eventually learned that she didn’t need either one of her parents. She had always had what she needed in her grandparents. She did her best to show them how much she appreciated them. She knew that without their love and support, she would not have come so far in life. She kept up with her therapy, not wanting to ever fall into herself again like she had.

Megan also found love. Something she had never thought possible.

Now she realized that she had never needed to be alone. She took her journals from her childhood, and used them to write a book that would help teenagers going through what she had. She used her experiences not only to help herself, but to help others as well. True to her love of reading, Megan also began to write her own stories that would provide others with an escape from their own realities.

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Anyone for Tennis?

by ERIC

CLAPTON

Twice upon a time in the valley of the tears, the auctioneer is bidding for a box of fading years, and the elephants are dancing on the graves of squealing mice.

Anyone for tennis?

Wouldn't that be nice?

And the ice-creams are all melting on the streets of bloody beer, while the beggars stain the pavements with fluorescent Christmas cheer, and the Bentley-driving guru is putting up his price.

Anyone for tennis Wouldn't that be nice?

And the prophets in the boutiques give out messages of hope with jingle bells and fairy tales and blind colliding scopes, and you can tell they're all the same, underneath the pretty lies.

Anyone for tennis Wouldn't that be nice?

Yellow Buddhist monk is burning brightly at the zoo.

You can bring a bowl of rice and then a glass of water too.

And fate is setting up the chessboard, while death rolls out the dice.

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Anyone for tennis Wouldn't that be nice?

Anyone for Tennis?

by GENEVIEVE PARKER

A single-song analysis is like tearing a page from your own auto-musical-biography. While a single page can't tell the full story, it offers a window to climb in and stay for a moment. Like fingerprints, never will two people have an identical collection of favorites. Among my own is a song I am strongly and strangely drawn to, “Anyone for Tennis,” by Eric Clapton and Martin Sharp. I was looking through my collection and it stuck out when it appeared more than once. To me, it is one of the most fascinating pieces of music I keep.

It is such a rare occasion that a song has me so captivated and so disconnected from life the way “Anyone for Tennis” does. This song makes you feel because you think, not think because you feel. And so many times a song is all about how you have felt, because of something personal. But this song, for me, is about how I will feel if I free myself from logic.

I have no personal reference to anything in the song. It is not about love, a place I have been, or a person I have met, yet it has this mesmerizing effect on me. It is as if the whimsy and nonsense pulls me in, and despite the lack of happy ending, I mentally dance to the next lyric so willingly, ready to ask, “Anyone for tennis? The elephants are dancing, after all.” These juxtaposed items that are

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clearly not what they seem leave me wondering, but with no real desire to know the answer. And as someone who always wants an answer, this is unusual. But don’t think the absolutely whimsical and seemingly nonsensical lyrics are simplistic and without meaning.

Clapton references burning monks and writes that “Fate is setting up the chessboard, while death roles out the dice.� There are heavy tones amidst the disarming whimsicality.

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