Analogue Days

We all get older, some time we all die. We develop an ugly kind of beauty, skin thins down and stretches, new shapes emerge, expressions are exaggerated and those nose and eyebrow hairs turn into barbed wire like material (for blokes mostly). Less stupid but little wiser, more pain and more draining away of precious energy and a strange desire to add experiences but nothing too dangerous that might hurt your back. Life is not an easy business to be in but few actually want to leave. 

I had to reach a certain age (?) before Leonard Cohen's lyrics really made sense, at the same time all the raucous rock and blues lyrics faded away and their senseless youthfulness ceased to resonate around in my head. Unless I was in the shower and weak willed. A divide had opened up. Dylan's words still illuminated like an acid trip, Joni Mitchell became the queen of eloquence and mood and Neil Young just sounded as grumpy as I could be on a Monday morning before the first cup of tea or if my shoes were too tight due to a poor choice of socks. 

Somewhere in the distance the aircraft drone of Pink Floyd and Dave Gilmour's angst ridden groans broke another wall of silence. The long night of the soul is upon us and Steely Dan's fine chords and shuffle beats can't light the dull way as clearly as I'd like. Prog Rock sounds like a gloriously silly revolution, punk is just a wrinkled mess, everyone else now worships the 80s and machines rule. The past and the 80s remains a blur to me but Netflix has clarified them into a pure, memorable alcohol that new, unwired generation can sup up. I don't care what's popular right now, it's not me anyway. Everything is just the stringing together of random words and jerky sentences and then applying the right rate of beats and heavy compression, I'm not fooled.

Cars, jobs and faces and travel and meals all melt into some pot of lost relationships and possessions that I can no longer order about, they float freely, like stolen used fivers and tenners on a windy day. We're all headed over the rainbow, on a bed in that flimsy cottage, all headed for Maggie's farm or some sweet spacial oblivion. Days pass by like forest timber down a waterfall, heavy and out of control, slipping and a sliding. Here, there and far away from this analogue person.