I was just listening to the song “Cars n’ Girls” by a group called Prefab Sprout (if you don't know them, they are worth looking up and are an Irish band and well worth the time). The song is their response to Bruce Springsteen and before I can say anything, that is, if it remains that I have anything to say, let me quote from some of the song for you here and remember, the song is intended for Bruce Springsteen, whom I also happen to like, but Paddy-boy’s point is well-taken here (*note that Paddy is the lead-singer for the group);
Brucie dreams life's a highway too many roads bypass my way
Or they never begin. Innocence coming to grief
At the hands of life - Stinkin' car thief, that's my concept of sin
Does heaven wait all heavenly over the next horizon ?
But look at us now, quit driving, some things hurt more much more than cars and girls.
Just look at us now, start counting, what adds up the way it did when we were young ?
Look at us now, quit driving, some things hurt much more than cars and girls.
Life's a drive through a dust bowl, what's it do, do to a young soul
We are deeply concerned, someone stops for directions,
Something responds deep in our engines, we have all been burned
Will heaven wait all heavenly over the next horizon ?
But look at us now, quit driving, some things hurt more much more than cars and girls.
Just look at us now, start counting, what adds up the way it did when we were young ?
Look at us now, quit driving, some things hurt much more than cars and girls.
Little boy got a hot rod, thinks it makes him some kind of new God
Well this is one race he won't win,
'Cos life's no cruise with a cool chick
Too many folks feelin' car sick, but it never pulls in.
Brucie's thoughts - Pretty streamers
- Guess this world needs its dreamers may they never wake up.
But look at us now, quit driving, some things hurt more much more than cars and girls.
Just look at us now, start counting, what adds up the way it did when we were young ?
Look at us now, quit driving, some things hurt much more than cars and girls.
But look at us now, quit driving, some things hurt more much more than cars and girls.
Just look at us now, start counting, what adds up the way it did when we were young ?
Look at us now, quit driving, some things hurt much more than cars and girls.
I want to sing or say all of this to some people in or in and out of my life right now. I want them to know that some things hurt more, much more than cars n’ girls as Paddy says, because he’s just so fucking right. I say this but I suppose my own situation has to do with relationships - but not a cruise by the beach in a hot-rod summer-romance kind of thing, but something based in reality that was fully and wholly a part of my soul and in this way then, holy.
Personally, I believe anything is sustainable if you want it to be. That it is your choice. That life takes work, and I think that’s part of the message of this song. Yes, I guess this world does need its dreamers and that’s great, but it also needs the pragmatist who sees all of this joy and potential for joy and knows the means of holding onto it so that it is not just a fast ride in a hot rod or a fork in the road you take for some brief time. One needs to have the courage to dream and the courage to act. It was Ghandi who said that only the truly brave can love. A coward is incapable of love, he said, and I quite agree for pursuing love, a love that is worth it, takes backbone because it may not be an easy road. For the spineless, it is a fork in your love-line that you pay no attention to because that would be just too inconvenient. How insipid.
Life, love, are often inconvenient. Rarely has my life accommodated me, but rather, I accommodate and bend and yield to it and that is okay. One has little choice anyway except to sit there like a slug and do nothing, or remain paralyzed as if stung by a man o’ war jellyfish – and I hate that. I hate that some people are just paralyzed and just sit there waiting for the strong among us to do the work and puzzle our way through stuff, as if we are cutting a swath through the heavy brush for everyone else to cross. Yes, I will offer my hand to help you through. More, if you want to jump and we are in love, then I will surely jump with you because I am that brave. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about Brucie's cheap ego-validation and his refusal to acknowledge or pursue a greater kind of love. His idea of "love" is a ride on a roller-coaster at Playland in Rye and then you get off and it's all over. Yes, ride the ferris wheel in Playland, but don't leave off there...it doesn't all end in the Tunnel of Love; there must be something at the otherside. You must, quite simply, have the courage to follow through as in a game of tennis. Ping the ball back. Love-Love.
I am tired. I am weary. As Shakespeare wrote, Love, I have grown weary of this fond chase. Which wasn’t to say “Enough” or “I don’t want you” only, help me out here. Don’t make me do all of the work and let’s stop “dancing in the dark” to quote Bruce and get real. It all sounds so complicated, but life is as complicated or as simple as you make it. You can make it a very complicated thing, or you can leave off and stop trying to define things that are indefinable anything… take a lesson from our Bob Dylan, latest winner of the Pulitzer (and isn’t that about time!) and don’t try to define things. As Dylan noted, “I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.”
Things only require definition when they become known by more than two people. A thing between two people need not be defined, unless one of them feels some absurd, howling need to define, to clarify, I think you know the status of a relationship and what is going on between you and another. If you need to hear it out-loud, then the relationship probably isn’t working out. Clarification is not always necessary; I feel strongly one should just “know” and while yes, a validation is nice and sometimes important, you cannot hinge your actions on that.
I’ve had people ask me to define certain relationships I have had in my life. What sort of “friendship” was it – was it “beyond” friendship – whatever that really means because I do think some relationships absolutely transcend friendship and between people of the opposite sex, but does that necessarily equate with sex? No. Does it mean necessarily that it likewise does not equate with sex? No. It could swing either way. With enough of a soul connection, I think it’s natural to seek out a further physical connection and that grows out of that connection. Most importantly however, I think there really is no need to define unless a third-party gets involved and I don't see what a third-party has to do with two such people who share this bond. So long as there is no third-party, there is no need of definition. It does not require it. It is only when we, or often when we, begin to try and define our relationships that we run into trouble because we question what is essentially a transcendent gift.
I’ve seen this when there is or was no initial “chemistry”; so love can and does “grow” with the right person. What begins as an ordinary friendship, acquaintance will blossom and that person becomes “worth all the time in the world” or one of my favorite expressions, you’re favorite waste of time (thanks to Marshall Crenshaw for that line). If someone makes you feel more alive, invigorated, enlivened again, and you feel your blood move where once it was stagnant, hell, I would and do fight for that. I don’t understand anyone who would not. Who would willingly let that slip away and fall easily back into a “Cars n’ Girls” like life, because there is so much more to life than the simple fling, the girl on the train you see and wonder ‘what would she be like’ etc. etc.
Such things are trite, and I like to believe I don’t or haven’t gotten hooked on anyone this trite, although I am sorry to report that perhaps my choices, in as much as one could call them “choices” were not always so wise. But again, I think you are drawn to who you are and that can be problematic because it conflicts with prior commitments etc. One has to learn how to make myriad vows and keep them all without breaking another and this is tricky business, but it is wholly possible. I believe that.
Believe it or not, I too make oaths, the difference is I keep the oaths that I make; I do not pick and choose one particular person and say, “then I shall keep my oath to him or her”. If I make an oath to a friend, I shall keep that oath as well. And more, if I have a friend who moves beyond the bounds of any ordinary friendship, then I shall keep my promises to that person. I see no conflict there. I think to see conflict is a provincial way of thinking. Yes, provincial and boring, just like the way I began this piece about Brucie dreaming life’s a highway – so many roads bypass his way…
Yup.
