I have uttered the phrase, “..because my momma raised me right..” in response to being asked why I did something the way I did it. I think that that is probably true, but I have still managed to acheive the status of situational shitheel enough to wonder if I am not defined as one to certain individuals.
I have been short fused. I have at times even decided to operate with enmity, which, though thrilling is just dumb once you know what the fall out is like.
I have done innumerable stupid things which I shall not list here. I have fucked up, but I am not a f**k up in that Burroughs way- permanently observable as such.
A person has to love themselves. You can write yourself off. The world is on fire, but writing yourself off doesn't lead to anything good. It allows you to abandon your limmits and disregard the rules. If you write yourself off the road to hell is in your observable imagination so the paving and with what intentions become immaterial. It is downhill to hell.
Sometimes, regardless of the fact that I am knowingly worthy of self love, I compile all of the evidence from the bad part of memory and close my eyes and shake my head.
When I look at this song, The Kelly Moore Estate through that lens, I’m the guy that runs away when s**t gets complicated. I’m the guy who f***s around and takes a powder instead of waiting to find out.
But I do love myself. The guy that wrote this song is me, bumping up against my emotional limmits and choosing not to hang out. I’m the guy who at one point thought that this would be cool stuff about my life to share because, for as singular as I see myself, I still want my experience to ring as universal experience.
One of the things about art that is performed is people get to have it.
Id sung in front of people enough to know that that was true. And I was having the rock and roll things for myself, not in an I'm-actually-famous kind of a way, but in an I-am-more- famous-than-you kind of a way and thinking I was famous.
I’m not sure at the time I would have known the difference I know now.
Compassion can be learned, but I'm not certain it can be taught. You may have to come apon the sense it makes like a theorem that suddenly clicks after hours of fruitless struggling. Disjointed logical parts and paths at a certain point line up and an impenetrable chore has come to some sensible, workable and maybe even obvious functionality.
This song doesn't mean what it meant 20 years ago. And though I was s**t heeling when I came up with it, it still works. I love the shitheel that wrote this song. He was learning. He still is. He can't judge a shitheel into permanent shitheel status any more than he can judge himself as such.
When I start to back away, city lights like an island in the sky slowly fading into black, while I'm still looking back, comin’ down but still high. I go to the Kelly Moore Estate and lay low. Old girl don't ever stay up late, but you know you can stay there for a song.
Skinny girls with runny noses, flirty clothes and car bombs, staying open til she closes, give me all that girl opposes- quiet country nights and new moms at the Kelly Moore Estate to lay low. Old girl don't ever stay up late, but you know you can stay there for a song.
Downtown will tell you you're her in between, when she's sees you start to fall ‘cause she knows she's just your b*****b queen and you won't ever make the scene till you can stand back from it all at the Kelly Moore Estate you lay low. Old girl don't ever stay up late, but you know you can stay there for a song.
Repeat first verse. Guitar solo. Vamp on chorus. Rock and roll things.
Darren Mathews played all the killer leads. Sean Haskins played drums and Randy Davis played bass. I played electric guitar on this whole record. It's a pretty great record.
You can buy it here:
