Classic Rock Songs into the Night
by Nyssa Jayne
i must say... writing without CAPITAL LETTERS is much easier. there once was a time when i couldn't help but use CAPITAL LETTERS, but now, eeek, they just annoy me. they're all of the shift key away from my fingers on a keyboard, i know, but i just don't care anymore. there's not enough hours in a day to start with, CAPITAL LETTERS just bring it down. that, and spellchecking is time consuming, too. so if my her story is spelt wrong, it's just because there's isn't enough time for things like that. i'm going to say sorry for that.
so it's around 2am, and i'm sitting at my laptop, on a bus, cruising down a dark highway... i don't even know where we are anymore. i don't care either. my destination is on the same list at my desire for CAPTIAL LETTERS.
i have a set of headphones plugged into my laptop, and i'm listening to "classic" rock songs, at least the ones labelled "classic" in the mp3 collection. my organised brother did that, he organised all the mp3's on the laptop into genre. i am grateful that i still care about music. sometimes even that dangles on a thread, and i wish to throw away every silver disc that reminds me of her...
she started it. my apathetic nature is now entirely her fault.
once upon a time, there lived a boy. he played the keyboards, plus a little bit of drums, guitar, conga and harmonica. he had two brothers, and they formed a band. they played classic rock songs and wrote music with no real words in it, just nonsense phrases that some people found endearing. he had blonde hair and blue eyes and had a voice full of soul and a heart full of love.
hi. my name is taylor. and i am a musician.
he toured the world, singing songs about girls and family and love and breaking up. he and his brothers lived the high life like naive children, seeing the world before bedtime. forget naming state capitals of america, he could name places in australia and japan and england that you've never heard of. his grand adventures were reflected in snap happy photos and home movies, which were turned into ambigous emotion for new release albums.
uhhh, so yeah... it's been five years since i've had a holiday at home. i'm going strong! *insert the polite clapping of my support group here, please*
and then... he met her. that's when things changed.
she had pretty blonde hair, framing her slim figure, which she covered in funky urban wear that mamma approved of. she wore high heeled shoes, even though she was tall. she sang songs too; she sang songs that rhymed her name in their lyrics. she conveyed innocence to the people that bought her records, she was the american teen dream you came to know and love as mandy. i fell for it too. i came to know and love her as mandy, too.
in my eyes, she was the most beautiful creature, both inside and out. actually, in retrospective, i still think she is beautiful, but that throws my aimless typing out of whack. i wanted to give her the world that i had discovered. i wanted to give her a villa in spain, a penthouse in new york, a beach house in sydney...
"taylor!" she would laugh. "i don't need your world! i only want one thing."
"and what would that be?" i would laugh back. it was at this point she would calm down and become deadly serious, but her eyes would still sparkle.
"all i want is you."
sure, i understood that sentence. i was no fonzie, but heeeyyy... i was a hit with my lady.
that reasoning for my understanding might work if i was a naive child seeing the world before bedtime. but even naive children grow up. i knew we had both started as these children of the pop music revolution, but upon growing up, we were beginning to learn that the world is not consisted of villas and penthouses and beach houses; that it doesn't consist of material things all the time. our worlds were consisting of love, which was not only adoration for the person on the opposite side of a kiss, but the truth that we had soul. not the soul in our voices that sold records; the soul that defined our induviduality. as the naive children of pop music, we were all the same blonde brats with sweet songs, but as souls in love, we shared music and stories and colours that defined us as people.
aw man, did that make sense? 2am, wait, 2:15am, is going to my head. just let me go over that. as kids, everything was materialistic and the same for us. then, we fell in love, not only adoring each other, but discovering that we were special and induvidual.
right.
so when she said, "all i want is you," she wanted my soul. she wanted my music and stories and colours, and all the rest of it, as her own, and when i told her, "i love you," she presumed i could take her soul in return.
being robbed of your soul; of your induviduality, is like being left as an empty shell. nothing matters anymore. you don't care anymore because it's not yours. face it: if your friend's cd is stolen, you don't care as much as if it had been your cd. don't deny it, and don't be ashamed, it's just the way it works. mandy took my soul, she declared her intentions in that one sentence, "all i want is you." now that the defining points of my personality were gone, i had nothing and i didn't care.
wait, i may not be using CAPITAL LETTERS, but i think the tense is important for this bit. i have nothing and i don't care. everything i had i don't care about anymore. i have to start again redefining myself. she cut her hair and started wearing abstract gowns in bright shades of green. i need a fresh start from the beginning.
hi. my name is taylor. and i'm a musician. it's been five years since i've had a holiday at home. i used to use CAPTIAL LETTERS when i type and i used to be in love with a girl called mandy. it's 2am, and i'm listening to classic rock songs.
i just want to be myself again. i want to play the keyboards, plus a little bit of drums, guitar, conga and harmonica. i want blonde hair and blue eyes and a voice full of soul and a heart full of love.
i don't want to be apathetic. i want to leave it behind with her.
Maybe it means I should start with CAPITAL LETTERS and Spellcheck.
Musical Credit
Sort of based on the U2 song, 'All I Want is You'
I think the album it's from is called 'Rattle and Hum', but it's on their first best of collection, too.
You say you want
Diamonds on a ring of gold
You say you want
Your story to remain untold
But all the promises we make
From the cradle to the grave
When all I want is you
You say you'll give me
A highway with no one on it
Treasure just to look upon
All the riches in the night
You say you'll give me
Eyes in a moon of blindness
A river in a time of dryness
A harbour in the tempest
But all the promises we make
From the cradle to the grave
When all I want is you
You say you want
Your love to work out right
To last with me all through the night
You say you want
Diamonds on a ring of gold
Your story to remain untold
Your love not to grow cold
All the promises we break
From the cradle to the grave
When all I want is you