The nature of this venue does not put a premium on research. This is no publication of record. It’s the Internet. Worse, it’s a blog. A web log. A log on the web. It is a log of blurbs and nonverbal verbiage because it has not been verbalized, actually uttered other than through these fingers upon this keyboard, and then, if you are a tormented with cognition, the voice you are hearing as you read this. The difference is that I don’t talk this way, the way these words are coming out here on this screen, unless I am writing. Or do I? I don’t really know. Sometimes and not.
Source: Wikipedia
I remember very little of what I say when I say a thing or two verbally, using the articulation tools from my guts to the end of my nose. 1 So, I’m discovering as these words accumulate on this log, I do not remember them as I thought I should or would. But that’s okay. They are here. That’s where the log part of blog comes in. That’s for what logs are. And the web, it’s for convenience, I suppose. Otherwise I probably would not have written here what I have written. But I did. I wrote them on this day, the 5th of November.
Upon hearing this date I’m reminded of it, of hearing the date spoken, verbalized, written about, cataloged, sung even. The singing part was what I couldn’t get out of my head. Instantly John Lennon’s song surfaced amidst the chemical flora and fauna playing with each other in the forest that is my gray matter. Some call it memory. I remembered the song, but not the title. Irony blesses my life again. This called for action on which the nature of this venue does not put a premium.2
What I remembered most about the song was its finish, the last line. I dug a bit and found quite a few sites offered lyrics to all of John Lennon’s song catalog. To my amazement the first few sites showed different versions of the same song, different from each other, and certainly varied from what I remembered. The thing is, I don’t trust my memory as once I did. This is probably a mistake. I’ve discovered that I’ve remembered incorrectly far fewer times than not, even with younger, fresher minds at hand. Nevertheless, I could have sworn that Mr. Lennon ended the song Remember with “the 5th of November.” But the versions of lyrics I beheld through my “research” had omitted those words.3 Anyway, I looked around until I found a couple of sites that did indeed agree with my memory. And so, I felt a lot better about a few things. Just couldn’t remember what.
Remember
Remember when you were young
How the hero was never hung
Always got away
Remember how the man
Used to leave you empty handed
Always, always let you down
If you ever change your mind
About leaving it all behind
Remember, remember, today
And don’t feel sorry
The way it’s gone
And don’t you worry
‘Bout what you’ve done
Remember when you were small
How people seemed so tall
Always had their way
Remember your ma and pa
Just wishing for movie stardom
Always, always playing a part
If you ever feel so sad
And the whole world is
driving you mad
Remember, remember, today
And don’t feel sorry
‘Bout the way it’s gone
And don’t you worry
‘Bout what you’ve done
o, no, remember, remember
The fifth of November.
John Lennon
Oh, and something about a Guy named Fawkes…
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I heard John Lennon’s Christmas song today and realized with a shock that it’s quite an inane song. I don’t ever remember thinking that about it before. I wonder what that says about me! I’ve always been a John Lennon fan but I have to say that there are several of his songs that just don’t appeal to me any more the way they used to. I’m trying to understand how I feel about this new development in my personality.
I felt the same as I was looking over the lyrics to his songs earlier. It had been soooo long since I had heard them, just hearing snippets and samples took me back to awkward youthful moments. Memories (again with the remember motif, sheesh) reasserted amidst the newer intellectual and emotional flotsam and jetsam as what I guess is my current aesthetic sensibilities. Still, I’ve got to admit some of the material I found ignorable if hardly bearable back then actually meant more musically these days. But overall, the lyrics do visit inanity planet as frequent fliers. That’s pretty much the nature of rock’n'roll, oh, baby, baby, bay, bee, yeah, do you know what I mean, it’s gonna be alright, uh, huh. I was disappointed to learn today that he was submitting himself to Primal Scream Therapy, which explains a few things, but reveals once again his lifelong tendency toward edgy, experimental and even trendy approaches to understanding his life, life in general. I feel pretty strongly this lack of understanding made him the artist he was as he expressed his explorations, discoveries and disappointments, giving voice to our similar experiences, articulating much of what we felt in the contemporary zeitgeist. The thing is, we don’t feel that way these days. Knowing now what we didn’t know then… it’s just not as relevant. The easy answer about this new development in your personality is that you are getting old. But that’s the easy answer. John Lennon would have turned sixty-nine a few weeks ago, like we discussed back then. Whether or not he is or is not alive, his music has absolutely no relevance to him in this moment.