Musical Therapy Part II

There've been a couple misunderstanding of lyrics that always seemed poignant to me. The uk surf version of The Pixies "Wave of Mutilation" was one of me and my mom's shared favorite songs when I was a teenager. One lyric goes:

I've kissed mermaids
Rode the El Nino

but my mom always misheard the lyrics as

I've kissed her legs

and once she told me she loved that line because it was so tender.

When I was heartbroken once in college, sad Otis Redding songs were all I wanted to listen to, and similarly, the lines I misheard were also my favorite lines. There's one verse that goes:

Honey, I saw you there last night
With another man's arms holding you tight
Nobody knows what I feel inside
All I know is I walked away and cried

and I always love the last line of that verse, which I thought was All I know is I want the way you cried.

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Grand Rapids, Michigan by Robin Crane

I am at a mental hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I had never been to this city before. My room is right next to the bay of telephones. I feel sad hearing so many patients start conversations with their friends or family and then so soon say, "Oh, you have to go? Well...goodbye."

Birthday Card Book

IN keeping with the more than usual focus on my mom, who passed away almost a year ago now, here is a book she made me for my 14th birthday.

Mermaid Sisters by Robin Crane

Mikayla knew that Diana tried to listen for actual words among the riotous din that drifted over from the elementary school whenever the kids were on the playground. More than once, she’d say something like, “I know they’re having conversations, but with all of them talking at once, it just sounds like they're all yelling at the top of their lungs at the same time.” Diana liked being able to faintly hear the morning announcements, but she didn’t like young children, and their playful noises sounded like seagulls aggressively squawking for the same pizza crust. Their family home growing up had been close to the beach, and they were currently sharing an apartment in a valley that was always hot and smoggy, with a sprawling building of U-Haul storage spaces, and the school of course, replacing the ocean as their view; hearing seabird noises out here felt like a taunt. No matter how many knots even a casual glance from Mom or ...

sweetheart redux

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