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September 23, 2006
Same As It Ever Was
So I'm listening to Senses Working Overtime, which is an awesome compilation of new wave bands and songs from my junior high and high school years, the music that really formed my personal aesthetic.
When Once in a Lifetime by the Talking Heads started, I realized I had to write this entry.
As a teen, when the music was new, I have to admit that I never understood this song. Never got it. It was kind of cool musically, and I had a crush on gangly, geeky David Byrne, but the song itself never really did it for me the way some of the others of the time did. It never lit me up and set me on fire.
Which is what it did just now. Apparently, 25 years of living, along with recently experiencing my own personal mid-life crisis makes all the difference when listening to a song about waking up in the middle of your life and trying to figure out how the fuck you got to the place you are. And it covers all the options. You can embrace it or you can deny deny deny and refuse to admit it's your life. You can refuse to live that life any longer as well, should that be your particular form of pleasure. But wake up one day, you will, and realize you've been sleepwalking through decisions that maybe you should have paid attention to.
And the best part? I can warn younger people about it now, let them know that this is going to happen. And they can say, "Okay, then I'm going to pay attention and not let that person be me." Just like I did. And it will happen to them anyway.
Because the refrain? Suggests that it's been this way as long as humans have been capable of conscious thought and self-direction.
It turns out that no matter what you do, at some point, you'll realize you were sleeping at the wheel. And that's where the decision to live comes in.
Posted by sally at September 23, 2006 03:15 PM
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