Dreaming

(Eric Bogle & "Dolly Parton")

Ever wake up late at night, or find yourself working or reading or just fucking off, with a song going around in your brain? I always do that. Especially the late-night or early-morning thing.

If it's a nice, peaceful song, fine. A couple that seem to recur in my brain are "Don't Walk Away, Renee", (or whatever the actual title is) and "Meet Me in September". But lately they've been, well, not depressing exactly, but not cheerful songs, by Scots-Australian folk singer Eric Bogle. Now I am a lifelong fan of Eric Bogle. Amy and I got to see him live in Northampton at the Iron Horse pub, with John Munro, late last year when he was on one of his infrequent American tours. For a very humorous synopsis of the tour, go here. But imagine waking in the middle of the night to hear this going around and around and around in your head-

I know I won't see peace again,
for what's left of my life.
I know you'll keep on blindly killing,
and that many more will die.
I grieve for all the innocents,
and feel anger at their fate,
but I must not, I can not, I will not-
-hate.

Oh I wish I could be there,
The day you go to meet your God,
when you hold up your bloody hands and cry-
'I did it all in your name, Lord!'
That age-old lie,
lifted upwards as a prayer,
when your God looks deep inside your soul,
Oh, I wish I could be there.

For thou shalt not make me hate.
Thou shalt not make me kill.
This mind is my own,
this heart, this soul, this will.

If I've learned anything at all,
it's that love, not hate endures.
I'd rather live just one day in my world,
than a thousand years in yours.

- -

whew!

I dunno. I haven't been sleeping well lately. Well, ok, since Bush got elected the first time... but especially badly the last few months. Actually, a late-night musing brought on today's Mulligrubbers post. I woke up last night, after reading the first half of Sy Hersh's piece in the latest New Yorker, with the vision of George Bush looking out over a vast, devastated, radioactive Middle-Eastern wasteland and saying to me, "Well, we showed them Iranians, anyway. I think it was worth it."

I'd just like a single good night's sleep...