Doctor Robert...nothing has changed.
In 1986 I was 14 years old and this track was a hit on the radio, on MTV and elsewhere. It was one of the first songs to be very specifically about the AIDS crisis (they put your in a hole to fill in/but I prefer you to be seen). I should have been dancing and discovering the joys of being a teenager. Instead I was learning that being gay meant I was going to die of AIDS and all around me people I loved or knew of were already becoming sick or had actually died. People driving by in trucks screamed "Fag!!" at me on the way to school. Could they tell I was gay-that in my heart I fell in love with men? What was so wrong with me that they couldn't see the love in my heart? That I was just like them?
I am 38 this year. That was almost 25 years ago now. Sometimes it feels like the world is still so full of hatred I don't know how I even go on, and is the world even worth saving anymore? I don't know what the hell I am doing sometimes...its like treading water but dying of thirst.
Brain please go to sleep - stop the world, I want to get off.
3 comments:
William S. Burroughs said it toward the very end...you know what.
So did Paul Monette: "My own time is very short but I promise you: all that matters when you come to the end is how much you've managed to love and how much you've given back."
If nothing else, cling to that.
And to me.
I should probably explain the first line - the Doctor Robert is the name that the lead singer of the Blow monkeys went by(real name Bruce Robert Howard-hows that for a name linkage?) who wrote the song(actually written in 1984, released once in 1985 in a very different version than the re-recorded version which became a hit the following year. He was a pin up idle then-good looking and he could croon like they did in the 50s.
Every time I hear this song I want to cry-but it sounds like a love song. Clever clever lyric snuck right by the public by the always political Bruce Robert Howard.
When the world says Meh! I say Love.
Love you Bob.
Digging Your Scene
The Blow Monkeys
I just got your message baby
So sad to see you fade away
What in the world is this feeling
To catch a breath and leave me reeling
It`ll get you in the end, its god`s revenge
Oh I know I should come clean
But I prefer to deceive
Everyday I walk alone
And pray that god won`t see me
I know its wrong, I know its wrong
Tell me why is it I`m digging your scene
I know I`ll die baby
They put you in a home to fill in
But I wouldn`t call that living
I`m like a boy among men
I`d like a permanent friend
I`d like to think that I was just myself again
Why is it I`m digging your scene
I know I`ll die baby
I just got your message baby
So sad to see you fade away
I`m like a boy among men
I`d like a permanent friend
I`d like to think that I was just myself again
Why is it I`m digging your scene
I know I`ll die baby
If you hear the song its catchy as hell and sounds great now but read those lyrics! He buried this really pretty loud and clear song about AIDS in this hit single. the sing of a GREAT writer. he knew how to get the message out to the most people the fastest-popular music.
if you want to change the way the world thinks you have to say something that everyone can feel.
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