The Song I Would Have Eventually Written

Have you ever heard a song that didn't take a second listen, or even one complete one, for you to know it already? Songs you connect to instantly like this usually aren't then very good, once you take them apart -- when you look at the lyrics or consider the instrumentation or find out who they're actually by. But I heard a song the other day that is. But more than that, it is a song that encapsulates exactly what I like about words. It is a song that manages to do everything I strive for in my writing but rarely achive. It is the song that I should have, could have, and would have eventually written. Except I don't write songs. And I can't sing. Or play the guitar. But I do play the piano a little, so that's something.

The song is "Cotton" by The Mountain Goats. (I heard it first on an episode of the fantastic give-it-time, let-it-grow-on-you Showtime half-hour "Weeds".)

I have no idea what it's trying to say, but I know exactly what it means.

This song is for the rats
Who hurled themselves into the ocean
When they saw that the explosives in the cargo hold
Were just about to blow

This song is for the soil
That's toxic clear down to the bedrock
Where no thing of consequence can grow
Drop your seeds there
Let them go

Let them all go
Let 'em all go

This song is for the people
Who tell their families that they're sorry
For things they can't and won't feel sorry for

And once there was a desk
And now it's in a storage locker somewhere
And this song is for the stick pins and the cottons
I left in the top drawer

Let 'em all go
Let 'em all go

I wanna sing one for the cars
That are right now headed silent down the highway
And it's dark and there is nobody driving
And something has got to give

I saw you waiting by the roadside
You didn't know that I was watching
Now you know
Let it all go

Let 'em all go
Let it all go