Nobody Hurts You
While suffering with the business of a crashed hard disk, lost or busted back ups, and thus a lot of lost writing and history, I’ve been reloading music, and finding an old organ grinder, Graham Parker, medicinal.
These, e.g., soothe — from SQUEEZING OUT SPARKS, 1979, the year I gave college a second try, as the Ayatollahs revolted, and Rickie Lee Jones made her fab debut, on the eve of Reaganite destruction:
I try to pull my weight, study my geography
It doesn’t seem to get me anywhere
I hold a picture up, everybody thinks it’s me
I get a thrill out of tampering with the atmosphere
Hey baby, I’m out of favour
Can’t always be the right flavour
It just seems that no matter what you do
Someone somewhere’s suddenly gotta punish you
Nobody hurts you
Harder than yourself …
Did they tear it out, with talons of steel
And give you a shot, so that you wouldn’t feel
And wash it away, as if it wasn’t real ?
It’s just a mistake I won’t have to face
Don’t give it a name, don’t give it a place
Don’t give it a chance, it’s lucky in a way
It must have felt strange, to find me inside you
I hadn’t intended to stay
If you want to keep it right, put it to sleep at night
Squeeze it until it could say
You can’t be too strong
You decide what’s wrong …
