Hey.

Do you remember that song we heard?

It was a pretty long time ago…

But it was soft, and sweet and powerful

And if you turned it up loud enough, in your best friend’s presence

You could feel the lyrics twist around your essence

Hug it tight until your breath became short

And we drank the sonnet deep

We drank, and drank and drank until we could drink no more

And when the song was over, we‘d sing it then ourselves

And sing it in our sleep

Over

And over

And over

Until the whole neighborhood heard

Until our throats were desert dry with wear

Until we were starting to forget some of the words

Until our voices became so tired, the words were but a whisper in the air?

Even then we were singing

Because it was a beautiful song

It sang of love and wonder and fury and hate

It sang sadness and justice and demands for the truth

It sang of angels and demons and souls that danced ‘t’ward Hellgates

It screamed a melody unhampered and sung by our youth

It sang lilies and goblins and manticore dreams

It sang desperate streets and moonlight dances

It sang bitterly of lust ad deception with rock n’ roll screams

And it sang of bloodlust in one’s soul and unjustified romances

It was a song

A special song

And one that everyone knew

I think my brother knew it

And your cousins knew it

Our teacher knew it

And the shopkeeper could sing it with ease

And the kid down the street, Jimmy knew it in seventeen languages

(Including Finnish and Japanese!)

It was a dancing, twisting melody

That could have been sung for ages,

That throbbing, potent rhapsody,

It must have been written by sages

Yes, it really was one hell of a song

They don’t write ‘em like that anymore

Sure, we have some imitations

Thrown out by syndication

But they feel flat and trite and dull

And nothing like that song of yore

‘Cause they decided that those kind of songs

Are the sort that nobody likes, are the sort that are vile

They said, “We know what’s best for you, we know what doesn’t belong”

So they opened the radios, they threw out the dial

And stuffed them all full with tripe

But I still remember that old melody

The one we all knew by heart

The song that breathed pure ecstasy

Even if it never climbed to the charts

It was simple

It was loud

It was glorious and honey sweet

It screamed with guitars and drums and banjos

A song sure written in dapper dipped ink

But one thing still eludes me…

How did it go?

Do you remember?