Don’t let the sun go down on your grievances

The Hope Chronicles continue – I’m going to keep going until I feel the hope moving faster, growing, blossoming.  I WILL get me back.  And I’ll keep saying it until I can really, really believe it.

Let’s talk about a song.  A song can change your life…. a song can save your life… Morrissey believed the second, once upon a time.  I think I believe the first.   But perhaps the difference isn’t so clear cut.

The song in question, by a recording artist I really admire: Daniel Johnston.  My god (or your god/dess), the guy has been through life, and life has been through him.  Daniel has lived with schizophrenia and manic depression, and all the same old crap the rest of us live with too.  I guess I should be grateful that I’ve only (to my knowledge) had to tangle with metaphorical demons, rather than spiritual ones, as Daniel has.

But, perhaps to focus on the artist, rather than the illness, although both are relevant here.  Not that long ago, I heard this song again – it had been a while:

(there is a better video than this on youtube but sadly they’ve stuck an ad of Cheryl Cole talking about her hair over the top of it.)

Not that long ago – as I’m going to call the time period in question – when I heard this song again, things were really bad.  I won’t say I wanted out, but I didn’t exactly want “in” either.  There are scars that aren’t accidental.  They’re small, and they felt like they helped.  I’d lost that hope I found on the beach with D.  A temporary loss, as it happens, but it felt anything but at the time.  There were friends, trying, long-distance to do something.  But, then and there, standing in the kitchen, cutting up whatever it was I was cutting up, and eyeing the blade,  I needed some help at that very moment.

Such a simple song – no pretension.  Apparently, Johnston was once part of a movement named “the new sincerity”. by some music journo or other.  Let’s be glad that one didn’t stick.  But it is pretty apt, in this case.

“Do yourself a favour” Daniel sang “Become your own saviour”…and suddenly it hit… who the fuck did I think was going to pull me out of this?  Because, for a long time, I had been waiting for someone to come along say “right, you need to change this, and this, and this, and I’m going to help you and you won’t really need to worry as long as you follow me”.  I’m not sure that the wait was entirely unconscious.  I often allowed myself to pray this person would turn up.

And it struck me that that person was already here, holding a knife that he could either stick in himself or make himself dinner with.  And that person ended up standing in the kitchen, crying at the thought that only they could change it, properly.  A sad thought.  Crying at the thought that only they could change it, properly.  An inspiring thought.

And when you wake up in the morning

You’ll have a brand new feeling

And you’ll find yourself healing

So don’t let the sun go down on your grievances

A brand new feeling?  Well, I tried.  I talked about the grievances, and for a while I tried to put them to one side.  And, when I remember, I keep trying to do it.  I can’t say I always manage.  But one change that has stayed with me…I know who it is – this person that will stick out their hand and say “no more suffering, its time things got better.  Follow me”.  It aint Daniel, but thanks, Daniel, for reminding me who it really is.

And maybe I have started healing, as promised.  I’ll keep you posted.

A song can change your life.  A song can save your life.  They’re the same thing.