REPRESSION
"But this is a good song. Wouldn't you rather it be heard by a
lot of people?" the man said to the dead soldier. "If you give it to me,
no-one's ever gonna' hear it. In case you haven't noticed, I'm about to
die a failure. No-one's even gonna' hear my music, now."
The dead soldier replied "But no-one else can see me, or hear
me, and no-one else would be able to sing it like you just did. I want
you to sing it, even if no-one ever hears it except for me. Tell me
you'll do that."
The man gave the soldier a nod and a sigh, but wouldn't put it
into words. The soldier smiled and bid the man to sing it again. The
man didn't even have all of the words; just the chorus and a few lines
of the first verse. But the soldier didn't care, he liked the way the man
delivered the chorus:
"How does it betray me, if the enemy does slay me and he lays
me down to rest here in his land? Surely mama's sending for me.
Tellin' 'em sad stories: How she needs her baby home there, in his
own land! Evil machinations! I fight for alienation! Evil
machinayations of war...won't be part of solutions any more! Evil
machinations! Make me fight for an alien nation! Evil machinations
of war!"
The man played his guitar and sang to the dead kid who
wouldn't leave him alone until he wrote his song for him. He knew it
would be futile to resist, as he had experienced it before, on a much
grander scale. He had been bugged by a few thousand spirits to write
a menacing national rock anthem using the words "I'm American...See
my smokin' gun" a lot, after a massive terrorist attack. The man
refused in that instance, as well, at first. The man feared presenting
music from dead people, for fear that someone would think he stole it,
or was trying to capitalize on the dead. He had a hundred different
reasons as to why he would not write the songs, and shouldn't. No
good reasons existed in the pros column...
`~`
