Due to the overwhelming feedback from my “lunatic fridge” post (er, that would be one response, but hey it doesn’t take much to encourage me) I’ll tell ya about me and this song.
Please be advised that this entry may self destruct at any time. That’s something I’m good at…
Okay, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… No, wait, that wasn’t me. Ahem.
A long time ago, when I was a wee laddie…
It was a Tuesday night. I’m pretty sure it was a Tuesday, I seem to remember that pretty clearly. We were in the car, my parents and I, I was sixteen almost seventeen, I think.
Why can’t I remember? Mental block, perhaps, or age. It was a while back, yaknow. Maybe some of both. The details probably aren’t terribly important, anyway. Now, where was I?
Oh, yeah, in the car. I remember the car clearly, a 1978 Buick “Estate Wagon” that was a kinda cream with that fake brown paneling that was really popular on station wagons around the late seventies.
(I just realized that this could get really, REALLY long, so I hope you are on amphetamines and don’t need to be anywhere for a bit. But maybe not)
So we’re driving, and this song comes on. And I said “Can you turn this up, please? I just want to hear this song.”
Lunatic Fringe
I know you’re out there
You’re in hiding
And you hold your meetings
We can hear you coming
We know what you’re after
We’re wise to you this time
We won’t let you kill the laughter
We had just left a doctor’s office. The kind of doctor that says things like “Mmm, hmm” and “I see.” The kind of doctor that asks you to look at ink blots for patterns. The kind of doctor that tells you that you are going to live in a psychiatric hospital.
Lunatic Fringe
In the twilight’s last gleaming
This is open season
But you won’t get too far
We know you’ve got to blame someone
For your own confusion
But we’re on guard this time
Against your final solution
It was like somebody had just dropped a piano on me. Only a piano that I knew was coming. It wasn’t like I had been any kind of angel up to this point. There are plenty of stories I could tell, stories and things that you would think you wouldn’t hear from a sixteen year old. But now, years later, I realize that there are many other kids that are at least as messed up as I was. What happens to them?
We can hear you coming
(We can hear you coming)
No you’re not going to win this time
We can hear the footsteps
(We can hear the footsteps)
Way out along the walkway
Lunatic Fringe
We know you’re out there
But in these new dark ages
There will still be light
Well, I can’t tell stories for anybody else, just for me. My parents let me listen to my song. After that all I could say was “Why?” All they could say was “it’s the best thing, it’s all we can do right now.”
I had the next day to go see a few friends and pack a few things. “Few” being the word, since we weren’t allowed things that were sharp, or electrical. This was long before Gameboy, anyway. I walked in there on a Friday night (so now I’m thinking it was Wednesday that I heard the news, I’m pretty sure they didn’t give me two days). There was an assortment of teenagers, mixed about evenly boys and girls. This was my new family, for at least the next year. It would be a long journey before I would set foot outside again. And longer still before I was “free.” But in the end it made me much of what I am today. On the condensed list of “benefits” – I finished high school and started college before I was released. And I made up with my parents. So it was time well spent.
An eye for an eye
Well, before you go under
Can you feel the resistance
Can you feel the…thunder©Tom Cochrane
So now you know, at least some of the story.