BrucieWeb

It begins again! Just droped £176.25 on a ticket to this, am I mad? Yes, I expect I am!

We are in block 141 – which looks pretty good! It will be, as ever, ace! Fourth time to see her Madgesty!

 Roll on Thursday 11th September!

Lyrics: John Mayer – Vultures
Album: Continuum

Some of us, We’re hardly ever here
The rest of us, we’re born to disappear
How do I stop myself from
Being just a number
How will I hold my head
To keep from going under

Down to the wire
I wanted water but
I’ll walk through the fire
If this is what it takes
To take me even higher
Then I’ll come through
Like I do
When the world keeps
Testing me, testing me, testing me

How did they find me here
What do they want from me
All of these vultures hiding
Right outside my door
I hear them whisperin
They’re tryin to ride it out
Cause they’ve never gone this long
Without a kill before

Down to the wire
I wanted water but
I’ll walk through the fire
If this is what it takes
To take me even higher
Then I’ll come through
Like I do
When the world keeps
Testing me, testing me, testing me

Wheels up
I got to leave this evening
Can’t seem to shake these vultures
Off of my trail
Power is made, by power being taken
So I keep on running
To protect my situation

Down to the wire
I wanted water but
I’ll walk through the fire
If this is what it takes
To take me even higher
Then I’ll come through
Like I do
When the world keeps
Testing me, testing me

Oooooooooooo
Oooooooooooo
Oooooooooooo
Oooooooooooo
Whatcha gonna do about it
Whatcha gonna do about it

…come to an end…

I read this article by the great Charlie Booker (of whom I am a recent disciple).

In the article, Charlie berates his readership about the need to listen to the lyrics in a song:

“Sometimes I think the whole of humankind can be separated into two types: those who pay attention to song lyrics, and those who don’t. And those who don’t should be rounded up and throttled to death. By robots. With merciless strangling hands.”

Well Charlie, I am one of those people, I am a strictly melody man, and it has always bothered/intrigued me why I am like that, I have friends like Charlie, but I am not like that.

Anyways, while musing this, and listening to a recent purchase, John Mayer’s most recent album, ‘Continuum‘ (Oct 2006), and I head something in the lyrics of the song ‘Stop This Train’ – hold on I thought, I think I know what this song is about – and I never, ever get that – hell, I am listening to the lyrics, Charlie would be so proud – call off the killer robots!

So, I quickly googled for the lyrics (as an aside, when did the service of people transcribing the lyrics of songs and putting them on the Internet begin? I am glad it did, it is so handy) and I was struck by how bloody beautiful they were and how they perfectly capture the feeling of hopelessness and loss I often feel on a daily basis.I mourn, mourn the loss of my youth and soon to be dead parents (can barely believed I just typed that). This is exactly what this song is about and he tells it exactly how I feel.

So scared of getting older
I’m only good at being young

My god! Do I feel that too John!

Don’t know how else to say it
Don’t want to see my parents go
One generation’s length away
From fighting life out on my own

This is a perpetual fear of mine, of the loss of my parents, and I have never seen it so succinctly put. I guess these are universal themes, but they are so fluently and heartfelt put in this beautiful song that it is so poignant, sad and also life affirming. 

When he talks to his 68 year old Dad in the last verse,  his Dad says to him “turn sixty-eight, You renegotiate” – I loved that bit, and his Dad then goes on to tell him, that you can’t stop the train, and you shouldn’t want to, in a circle of life sort of thing – or at least that is what I got out of it. He goes on to say that he remembers having these same feelings. It is such a lovely moment in the song, sung in high falsetto, with John’s voice breaking over the last line, god it is tear jerking.

Pity, this massive revelation came during another fucking dull Wednesday morning at work, I would have been in floods of cathartic tears otherwise.

I am glad the power of this song hit me, and that John was able to transpose these deep feelings he has about getting older and the fear of the loss of his parents. I guess these are things we are both thinking about at our age, he is 3 years younger than me and his Dad is 3 years older than mine. Difference is, he wrote a beautiful song about it and I just worry!

I am loving John Mayer again, I had forgotten a bit about him for a few years. I was very late to his last alb

Stop This Train
Artist(Band):John Mayer

No, I’m not colorblind
I know the world is black and white
Try to keep an open mind
But I just can’t sleep on this tonight

Stop this trainI wanna get off
And go home again
I can’t take the speed it’s moving in
I know I can’t
But honestly, won’t someone stop this train?

Don’t know how else to say it
Don’t want to see my parents go
One generation’s length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this trainI wanna get off
And go home again
I can’t take the speed it’s moving in
I know I can
But honestly, won’t someone stop this train?

So scared of getting older
I’m only good at being young
So I play the numbers game
To find a way to say that life has just begun

Had a talk with my old man
Said “help me understand”
He said “turn sixty-eight
You renegotiate”

“Don’t stop this train
Don’t for a minute change the place you’re in
And don’t think I couldn’t ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly we’ll never stop this train”

Once in awhile, when it’s good
It’ll feel like it should
And they’re all still around
And you’re still safe and sound
And you don’t miss a thing
Till you cry when you’re driving away in the dark
Singing

Stop this trainI wanna get off
And go home again
I can’t take the speed it’s moving in
I know I can
Cause now I see I’ll never stop this train

London Eye, originally uploaded by brucieweb.

Canary Wharf from the Thames, originally uploaded by brucieweb.

FA Trophy @ Wembley, originally uploaded by brucieweb.

Work:

Home:

Really not happy with my home broadband speed, considering I live across the road from the exchange! It is going to take weeks to upload that 60gb of data to the Amazon S3 servers for my Jungle Drive back up – it’s been running nearly two days and has managed a paltry 3gb! I might have to take it into work and do it there!