If you will go to http://myspace.com/somebodysomewhere, you will find that there is a new song with probably less than 20 plays called Long Live Long Lives. Go listen to it.
Appauled? Overjoyed? Bored?
Whatever your response to this song may be, I want you to know a couple things about it.
This song was written a little less than a month ago in the frigid weathers of Pennsylvania at around two o'clock of one January morning. It was the night where everyone had gotten to bed late, where everyone probably cried. It was the night my grandpa passed away.
I don't believe I had ever gotten so sentimental as I was that night. I used to like calling myself sentimental. I liked that word a lot back then. Now, on that January night, I really experienced Sentimentality, quite possibly, at its deepest.
A couple years before this, when my grandpa was still walking around in his old-man clothes, he had put a Ukelele in my hands. It was the big Ukelele-- the one he carried around the world.
"Want to learn a song?" he asked. His voice was scratchy and old-sounding. But it was strong, still.
He taught me something on the Ukelele-- something to this day I can't remember, though I try.
That was probably four years ago. That was the last time I saw him in a walking state.
Years went past and I never really thought about him again. He was sort of a shadow that I always thought about when I heard the word Pennsylvania-- and I never heard that word very often.
The next time I saw him was on his death bed, wrinkled and shrunken, giving the appearance of death.
This time Grandma had put the Ukelele in my hands, that same Ukelele.
"Grandpa would have wanted you to have it," she said.
I think he would have. At least, I hope he would have liked me to have it.
It was on that frigid January night in Pennsylvania that I wrote this song on his ukelele. These are the words:
Oh no. It's time to go
Somewhere over the Rainbow
Oh no. It's time to let go
Separate your body from your soul
Don't waste your life waiting
For something to happen to you
Cuz then, sooner or later
Your life will start staring back at you
And you'll wonder why you never left the highway
Or the comfort of your own feather bed.
And you'll wonder why you never payed attention.
Why there's so few memories inside your head.
Consider these few words an appology
for all the things that I'd done wrong
When you were alive, I never told you that I loved you.
And now, you'll never know, cuz now you're gone.
Gone.
Don't waste your life waiting
For something to happen to you
Cuz then, sooner or later
Your life will start staring back at you
And you'll wonder why you never left the highway
Or the comfort of your own feather bed.
And you'll wonder why you never payed attention.
Why there's so few memories inside your head.
The first stanza is talking straight to him. Somewhere Over the Rainbow means heaven, or the afterlife, or that Big Place in the sky, or whatever you want to call it.
The next two stanza's are really just talking to myself. I don't want to waste my life. I don't want things to just happen to me. I want to be the happening. I want to die knowing that I gave life the best I could.
The highway means the easy way of life. The highway, driving my Lexus with my GPS, never really taking any adventures. I don't want to be the guy at the end of his life wondering why I never did anything out of the ordinary.
Everything else is kind of self explanatory.
Consider these few words my apology.
While he was alive, I never really payed attention to him. The only contact I had with him was on my birthday when grandma and grandpa would call and tell me that they had put 25 dollars in the bank. I know I've told him that I loved him, but not enough. Not near enough. This is one of my biggest regrets. But I can't take it back. He's gone. Gone.
Sorry for making you read this. This is personal stuff, and you probably have better stuff to do with your time. But this song is just what came out. Hope you enjoy.
