The Go-Betweens are a canonical example of a band that can (or could) do no wrong, in a certain sense: they're the sort of band I can imagine being boring, but far too intelligent to ever go down a poor artistic path. As romantics in popular song go, they are most likely unsurpassed. But sometimes, the words a bit more than I can handle; they haunt me by virtue of their contrast to my life. On listening to them, at an intuitive level I know the spirit of the song - gentle, loyal, and suggestive of an infinite reservoir of emotion - is what a part of me is made of. If I could put a structure to the feelings I've accumulated over the decades, they would probably sound like what I'm hearing. The melody feels like home, and when I hum along, the song becomes my own. All fantastic, all beautiful, but! There's no one for me to sing it to. While every endeavour of the heart suddenly seems conceivable, all I can do is expectantly sigh.

The poor recipients of my correspondence during some of the roughest days I faced. If only it were possible for me to track every one of them down, sit them down to the place my mind now inhabits, offer a cup of tea or what have you, and explain with simple words (plus some new ones I have since learnt) that I am not that person anymore. I cannot, of course, but I will still sigh and dream, only sometimes asking why people are so unfair as to pigeonhole each other.

Update '08: But then I read again the things I wrote, that I thought I meant at the time. I cannot honestly say that I would forgive such talk, even at this, my "mature" period.

You might laugh if you knew the motivation behind some of these writings. Is that what makes my writing mediocre at best; the inability to get across some of the deliberate bathos? Well, that, and the inherent banality I suppose.

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Lying idle now, though meant for all to see,
Precious jewels I had eagerly gathered.
There was not even a blink - another loss,
But as if that ever mattered!

Lament

The most earth-grounding exercise I perform when it comes to my attempts at writing comes from reflection on how I tend to express thoughts and feelings as compared to other works that I am fond of by writers of varying statures. So blunt, so devoid of humour, so lacking secret or subtlety, so...obvious. I think subtlety is the biggest lapse in my palette, but this is not a new realization, sadly. I hope I can get past the all too familiar hyper-serious, suffocating style of prose that I seem to have perfected over the years whenever it comes to something that almost cries out for careful, poignant treatment. I think the reason I do not naturally gravitate towards the latter is because whenever I have tried it, I end up being overtly maudlin and again, hyper-serious (but in a different sense). Maybe the problem is that I am just no good at these things ;)

As I looked outside the window today, it was with a sense of disappointment that I realized that I cannot achieve immortality with words. "The children are all insane / Waiting for the summer rain", "And if my thought-dreams could be seen /
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine / But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only", "Help me find my proper place / Because I'm falling out of grace", I can't hope to write anything like that. I look up to them, seek inspiration from them, but alas, it is depressing when everytime you find yourself falling short! I suppose that when you look at greater minds than yours, you realize how small you really are. In many ways, I guess I am but a shallow reflection of these greater writers, consciously or not using their techniques to try to give words to my ideas. I suppose it is a long struggle ahead, but at least one day I would like to write something really resonant which I can look at sometime in the future and just sigh with satisfaction.

Yes, I don't know what I would have given to write any of those lines. My right arm, perhaps!? Perhaps it's just the weather - the rain has always brought out the brooding artistic part of me - but right now I feel like I ought to leave my mark on this world using the power of the word. It may well be the only real way that we can become immortal, and maybe it's the answer to all the questions I've had about my worries about the pointlessness of it all? Then again, there is no universal panacea, but I'm one of the hazy half-asleep states right now, where my idealism seems to know no bounds.

I think part of the problem is that Jim Morrison. As I predicted a month or so ago, it seems like I'm having that period where I am getting taken with this image I have somehow created of him as a dark, brooding poet, the kind that I guess fascinates me. Plus, that deep voice, ooh now that can send chills down your spine. I can see the similarity to Nick Cave, actually. Anyway, it looks like I'll be spending this summer swooning over Crystal Ship.

Speaking of Morrison, of all people Amma said she played The Doors at full volume in her room when she was 16. For some reason, it strikes me as a very...how to explain it? No, impossible, I can't explain, suffice to say it's a remark I think I shall remember for a while now. Maybe someday I can tell youngsters of the time I played Black Dog on a cold winter morning?