this week we embark on an open-ended exploration of the height of heights, and the depths of despair.
wait a minute, that was what “connect the dots” was all about. minus the height of heights.
monday song #30: the nice guy
thus ends the cycle “connect the dots.”
i have loved “jesus christ superstar” since elementary school. after the crucifixion, there is a final number called “john 19:41.” i listened for years without ever inspecting what lay there, i assumed he got sucked up to heaven in a brilliant white light.
monday song #29: thanksgiving
number 29, the penultimate installment of “connect the dots.”
mr. sullivan swims back to the day he lost his son. thanksgiving 1985.
his dream weaves this discovery into his life-long distance, his remorse, and the note that spelled out his son’s despair.
monday song #28: behind the blue
this is the start of a three song death scene. clarity is coming for mr. sullivan, and so is the end of this song cycle. the first step is acceptance. at that point he will be opened up to his core. and then the curtains will fall.
finally introduced by name at the end of the last song, mr. sullivan sinks toward his end, his son approaches, asking him to stay. this song is in the voice of the son, who has had more time to adjust to these strange surroundings.
monday song #27: the button
probably the most depressing song yet, but i’m sure i can top it.
after two weeks of revery, mr. sullivan emerges back in his hospital room. things continue downhill.
monday song #26: the flowers of romance
number 26. five percent of the way there…
on an odd association, his son’s war experience shifts into his experience in the armed services in the early fifties, which reads more like a vacation. a singular shapshot of freedom and ease and shameless hedonism. how much is real and how much has been rung through the simplifying cauterizer of time is unknown. though it sounds like he had fun.
monday song #25: time flies
i thought i’d write a few little ditties before getting back to the story line. my new music room has windows. there’s grass and sky out there. i can even see a piece of the space needle. i felt the happy songs coming…
no such luck.
monday song# 24: i.v.
with monday song number 24, I have released as many songs in the past five and a half months, as I officially released in a decade of billie burke estate. the power of deadlines. and simplified production values. and ten years’ practice…
i was planning to head to the ’60s for our next chapter, but i changed my mind at the last minute and wrote this little ditty on sunday morning. we are back at the hospital bed, fresh from a pair of awkward reminiscences.
monday song #23: first communion
number 23. a mystical number for fans of psychic tv and throbbing gristle. and the chicago bulls.
i realized after i posted last week’s song that that the memory parade of our protagonist had begun in the late 30s with a 30s style song. figured the next milestone should happen in the early 50s, and so i went with a ‘kansas city’ style boogie-woogie early 50s song. a high school memory of his first foray into the world of comingling.
monday song #22: a long long time
here’s the second installment of ‘connect the dots.’ after framing the protagonist’s delirium, we fly back through the years to a time of relative happiness. but unbeknownst to the narrator, all is not as well as he had hoped in his past. it is an escape for him into his childlike mind, but there is more going on than meets the eye.