This song I heard in a dream… the dream was set in the future and consisted of a young black man in a red t-shirt, straw hat, and beat-up green convertible driving west down highway 64 in Kentucky. The shining sun, the wide open sky, and the wind all filled me with intense feelings of exhilaration. I wasn’t a character in the dream, though, I was watching it, like a music video.
I felt like the man was singing just to me and wanted me to write the song down, so I did. The only problem was that he used an unmentionable word to refer to himself, so not being quite sure what to do, I changed the name of his song from “Kentucky Something-or-the-other” to “Rose Fairy.”
I wrote this song in Kentucky while visiting my parents for Christmas. I think in the back of my mind there were images of a school field trip where we were dropped off in the mountains and had to find our way back to the teachers using a map and compass.
But I like this song because it captures the conflicts I felt at the time, such as being weighed down by the past, but feeling pressured to move quickly into the future; and having my own mind, but wanting to see things the same way as others. And in general, the sense of groping my way through darkness and pain towards an unknown goal. Maybe that is how seeds feel until they finally reach the air.
When I wrote this song I was taking a class in Renaissance Astrology, and I had read a book- which I think was by Cornelius Agrippa- in which he describes the Soul of the World as loving all things sweet and shiny. I was glad to read that, because it matched up with my idea (at the time) of the Universe being one giant woman who loved flowers, candy, jewelry, and greeting cards, and had the power to turn everything bad into something good. Download MP3: Fanciful
This song started playing in my head while I was living in Brooklyn, but I refused to write it down because I was determined not to write any more songs. Living on the outskirts of Brooklyn, a two hour walk to the subway, the idea of writing songs for nobody seemed both pointless and depressing. I thought my head space would be better used for something practical, although I wasn’t quite sure what that would be. It felt like I had reached the end of the my universe… no more hopes and dreams… no future to look forward to… just a never ending stream of three inch cock roaches to kill or run from.
The only thing that kept me going was a nearby drug store where I could buy 5 packs of potato chips for a dollar. They came in about 15 flavors ranging from Cool Ranch Doritos to Cheetos. Every evening I would walk to the drug store and select five packs. I would eat one (which was always thick pretzels) on the way home, and then eat the other four while watching a movie on my computer.
I didn’t want to be in Brooklyn, but with no money and no car, what could I do? One day, I decided to paint my apartment sky blue and decorate it with pictures of airplanes, hoping they would magically give me the power to fly away. A few days later, the answer struck me like lightening- I could rent a car and move back to Kentucky! How could it have taken me so long to realize something so obvious?
Leaving New York was the best feeling ever. Driving through the Amish countryside in Pennsylvania… buying fried chicken liver at a gas station on the Kentucky border… in comparison to Brooklyn, the rest of the world was one giant paradise! The people didn’t yell or throw glass bottles at you, the streets were wide and clean and the cars seemed to glide along in slow motion. There was no trash that blew down the sidewalks, no curly dark hairs in the breadsticks. Suddenly, every good experience had become affordable and within reach.
And so, at last, I had enough energy to buy a legal pad and write down this song.
When I hear this song, I think of the Ohio River that separated Kentucky from Indiana. I see Indiana at night, shining with green lights like the Emerald City, and me standing in Kentucky, filled with longing. I see ghosts crossing the river, leaving Indiana to reach Kentucky, wearing long lace dresses that flutter in the breeze. I think of myself, all alone on the shore, bombarded by ghosts, and wishing there was a way to reach that Land of Dreams on the other side of the river.
Another recording of Ice Man- this one recorded at home. A song about being so defeated by internal and external forces that a person no longer has it within them to struggle… a song about ice!!
Another song about someone dying from hypothermia. It was inspired by this magazine cover…
Why do I like songs about people dying from hypothermia? Because as humans, we need our world to stay just the right temperature. We lose our ability to live if things get too hot or too cold. Sometimes, we compensate for an excess of warmth or an excess of coldness in ways that prove detrimental to us later… for example, if our lives feel too cold we might engage in excessive risk taking or drama making, or if things feel too hot and chaotic we might isolate ourselves and hide behind a computer screen.
But, there is only so much we can compensate for, and eventually these hostile forces overtake us. When there is not enough love and nobody seems to care about us, we can compensate for a while, but eventually the ice creeps into our soul and we lose the ability to move, to reach out, to feel, to care, and finally even the will to live is extinguished.
It makes me think of the following poem by Robert Frost:
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
This is a song I wrote during my short-lived interest in politics. A lot of what Ron Paul said really opened my eyes to new ways of seeing things, but ultimately I lost interest in the “liberty movement” when it became clear that the people wanting less government were just as interested in power as the people they were trying to depose. I still like Ron Paul, though, and admire him for his willingness to stand up to at least one of the Longfingers in our world.
