Month of Music Day 14 Nirvana Come As You Are Nevermind Come, as you are. As you were. As I want you to be. As a friend. As a friend. As an old enemy. Take your time. Hurry up. The choice is yours. Don't be late. Take a rest. As a friend. As a old memory, memory, memory, memory. [Chorus:] Memory, memory, memory, memory. Come. Dowsed in mud. Soaked in bleach. As I want you to be. As a trend. As a friend. As an old memory, memory, memory, memory. And I swear that I don't have a gun. No I don't have a gun. No I don't have a gun. [Chorus:] Memory, memory, memory, memory (don't have a gun). And I swear that I don't have a gun. No I don't have a gun. No I don't have a gun. No I don't have a gun. No I don't have a gun. Memory, memory...

My Take:

It's another long night. I have these, every once in a while. The nights that sleep never comes. The first time I noticed it was when I was in LeMars, Iowa. It was a school night like any other. For some reason, I couldn't get to sleep, and nothing I tried helped. Cocoa Puffs, warm milk, counting back from 100, Nyquil...nothing seemed to work. I even woke my Dad up to tell him that I couldn't sleep. I didn't sleep that much that night. The next day, I was fine. No sleep, but I was as sadly coherent as usual. That night, I was sleeping like usual - no problems. When I got on my own in Tennessee, I found out what the meaning of "all-nighter" was. That thing that I did frequently during the year. Every once in a while, I just don't require sleep. I think it has something to do with either depression or excitement. The night before I left Iraq I slept a grand total of 20 minutes. When I went through a sticky relationship, I never slept. Sometimes, I just don't require sleep. But sometimes I wish it would come. Alli and others have told me I'm blessed, and I say I'm lucky...but they're the same thing. It's the secular and spiritual translations, really. I've only had a couple of friends who have died. I've only had a few loved ones get really sick. My family is mostly intact, save my Mother. But I've seen the sadness others have gone through. I can never know the pain they must feel. Only recently have I even known what it's like to love somebody! It can be said that I'm social deficient in several key areas, including kissing, dating, and general "What The Crap To Do With A Womanâ„¢." Yep, I sure know how to impress the ladies. It this sense that I am not worthy of the praise, but I'm so eager to take the blame. Does it come from my parent's divorce? I dunno. I do know that I actually get physically sick when somebody doesn't like me. So I wonder what was going through Kurt Cobain's head. I mean, before the shotgun pellets. Rude, I know, but I have a disdain for suicide. Even if it was drug induced. One of the Amys told me once that she knew the reason why I hadn't blown my head off so far was my relationship with God. And it's true...there is definitely something different about me. I can't explain it, but I've lead a charmed life. There's never really been a rebellious period in my life. I've always been pretty close to Church, God, and that lifestyle. There were times when I wanted to chunk it all, but I never got around to doing it. One of the small rebellions was Nirvana. I first saw Nirvana on MTV, right during the birth of grunge as an art-form. There was that whole liberal Seattle music scene, the rampant environmentalism, and the flannel. Don't get me started on big hair. But mostly there was the music that sounded like me. Misguided, with no fights left to fight. The only fights left were for nonsense reasons. Save the trees, no more oil, dolphin-free tuna. Where were the Noble Prize winners going to come from? There weren't any more problems to fix? No, honestly, that was the real mindset in 1991. We just won the Gulf War, and thought that there wouldn't be another one. We were close to cures for AIDS and HIV. Generation X should've been happy...but it wasn't. It was a strangely turmoil-heavy time. Political change was in the air. People wanted a new, centrist party. The big hair. Flannel everywhere. Grunge. Et cetera, et cetera. Not to get into a whole history argument, just take it that times they were a changin'. I got Nevermind at Wal-Mart in Forest. Stuck it in my tape-player in my car. Started to play it. Fell in love with the misery. In fact, when I was learning how to play guitar, this was the first song I learned. It's really simple if you look at the tabs. But it's that little hook that's so addictive. I don't really understand the song. There's the part where he sings the part about not having a gun that's so ironic. But that only helps me to think about how useless some of the stuff I do is. Like that last sentence. I still blast this song, just because of the sheer waste. The catchy hook. The wasted future. The lost life. It was selfish for him to do that to himself, his family, and his fans. I wish he hadn't been so selfish. I wish I wasn't so selfish. And sometimes, I wish I could sleep.

status: published
author: John Stansbury
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  similarterms: memory sleep night friend song left life selfish nirvana music time slept part grunge hook love cetera problems hair thing