Story Behind the Song
This piece is born out of tragedy, human frailty and frustration at the condition we all tend to get ourselves in at times. Loneliness is a disease of the soul. Help me with my dis-ease. Paper thin tolerance in marriages breaks the spirit. Suicide (and there are two specific instances mentioned here is not an option. This piece originated with a series of interviews i did for a radio programme (you can hear excerpts if you listen closely) and started out as a poem. It grew when the son of a close friend killed himself and grew further when the daughter of another friend did the same. It took on another dimesnion after my own marriage failed. Appropriate musical backing, sound effected and ambience was gathered by myself and studio engineer Neil Hannan. This is a track from the forthcoming CD Cleaning Out the Garage. Please share it. This is a free heart offering to anyone who may be encouraged, helped or scared witless because of it - Keith
Lyrics
So Sad (Talk To Me Please)
A ragged university drop-out
meditates in a monastery
on a mountainside in Nepal
focused into deep nothingness.
Nirvana is not what he imagined.
An old dog limps along the shore
searching the horizon
for the return of a master
long ago lost at sea.
The echo of your own voice
comes back to you in the wilderness
A broken family is briefly united
at the Top of the Town
Having finished their banquet
the silence is thick
with unspoken things
Eyes fixed on harbour lights
and the bottom of glasses
wishing they were somewhere else.
A writer with all the world ahead
hangs from a garage ceiling
leaving a note that said
'too many expectations'.
In a car with gases seeping
disappointment comes creeping
a life full of promises
no longer worth keeping.
All the pain has come to this
solitary moment of hopelessness
In a motel under another name
tired of the endless game
When it seems you're the only one playing;
Struggling with a weakened will
The last sad flashbacks
under a cloud of vodka and pills
A copycat of how grandma ended her ills.
So sad we have to end it here
There's so much more to say
So sad you didn't wait around
for the pain to go away.
So sad for your friends and family
to remember you this way
At home TV punctuates the silence
in a marriage of paper thin tolerance
He, absorbed in the paper and his own thoughts
She, curled on the settee, lost in the screen
channel flicking, looking for something,
anything to keep her mind focused.
Insular and distant,
withdrawn and rejected - alone.
Anger, frustration, fear.
Fear of being looked at too closely
and judged of no value.
She thinks no-one understands.
and now finds strange comfort
in the familiar claustrophobia
Loneliness - the deep wound
The solitary disease, the internal affliction
steadily downward she climbs
to that solitary, private place.
When the door is closed there is no door.
But still she listens for that footfall
and perhaps a still small voice
perhaps a sign from heaven
a gentle knock, a calling from the deep
to wake her from the numbness
with confusion becalmed by peace.
A whispered prayer is all it takes
But who'll be waiting at the gate
to help ease this endless depression?
Like a drowning person in need of resuscitation
she cries inside craving caring conversation
So sad we have to end it here
There's so much more to say
So sad you didn't wait around
for the pain to go away.
So sad for your friends and family
to remember you this way.
- Keith Newman
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