At The Bottom Of Everything

Regular readers will know that music is and has been really important to me throughout this whole thing but that every now and again I come across a song that really says something to me. This is one of those - from the magnificent Bright Eyes:

So there was this woman and

she was on an airplane and

she's flying to meet her fiancé

sailing high above the largest ocean

on planet earth and she was seated

next to this man who you know

she had tried to start conversation with

but really the only thing

she heard him say was to order his bloody mary

and she's sitting there and she's reading

this really arduous magazine article about this

third world country that she couldn't

even pronounce the name of and

she's feeling very bored and very despondent

and then suddenly there's this huge mechanical failure and one of the engines gave out

and they started just falling thirty thousand feet

and the pilots on the microphone and he's saying,

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Oh My God, I'm Sorry"

and apologizing and she looks at the man and she says,

"Where are we going?" and he looks at her and he says,

"We're going to a party, it's a birthday party.

It's your birthday party, happy birthday darling.

We love you very, very, very, very, very, very, very much."

And then he starts humming this little tune and it kind of goes like this:

One, Two, One, Two, Three, Four

We must talk in every telephone, get eaten off the web

We must rip out all the epilogues from the books we have read

And to the face of every criminal strapped firmly to a chair

We must stare, we must stare, we must stare.

We must take all of the medicines too expensive now to sell

Set fire to the preacher who is promising us hell

And in the ear of every anarchist that sleeps but doesn't dream

We must sing, we must sing, we must sing.

And it'll go like this

While my mother waters plants my father loads his gun.

He says, "Death will give us back to God,

just like the setting sun

is returned to the lonesome ocean."

And then they splashed into the deep blue sea.

It was a wonderful splash.

We must blend into the choir, sing as static with the whole,

We must memorize nine numbers and deny we have a soul,

And to this endless race for property and privilege to be won

We must run, we must run, we must run.

We must hang up in the belfry where the bats in moonlight laugh

We must stare into a crystal ball and only see the past

And in the caverns of tomorrow with our flashlights and our love

We must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge.

And then we'll get down there,

way down to the very bottom of everything

and then we'll see it, oh we'll see it, we'll see it, we'll see it.

Oh my morning's coming back

The whole world's waking up

Oh the city bus is swimming past.

I'm happy just because

I found out I am really no one.