{"id":1121,"date":"2013-04-08T11:18:49","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T18:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/?p=1121"},"modified":"2018-04-08T09:56:11","modified_gmt":"2018-04-08T16:56:11","slug":"pass-the-dust-im-apparently-under-the-gravely-mistaken-impression-im-bowie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/2013\/04\/08\/pass-the-dust-im-apparently-under-the-gravely-mistaken-impression-im-bowie\/","title":{"rendered":"Pass the dust, I&#8217;m apparently under the gravely mistaken impression I&#8217;m Bowie&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Scared of the Light [Electric Version]<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/sunrise-2011-09-07-sm.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1122 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/sunrise-2011-09-07-sm-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/sunrise-2011-09-07-sm-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/sunrise-2011-09-07-sm.jpg 720w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>When he awoke, it was dark. His heart was pounding. He felt as though a giant hand was wrapped around him, squeezing the breath out of his lungs. He must have been dreaming but he remembered nothing. He forced air into his lungs, but his breath felt odd and shallow and each breath seemed to take tremendous effort.<iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 100%; height: 42px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=3409804489\/size=small\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/track=3529761498\/transparent=true\/\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" seamless=\"\"><a href=\"http:\/\/tkmajor.bandcamp.com\/album\/gone-is-gone\">Gone Is Gone by TK Major<\/a><\/iframe>He tried to shut out the panic but that seemed to make it more acute. He threw off the covers and turned on the light on the little table next to the bed&#8230; but its dim and yellow light seemed, if anything, to make his room just that much more oppressive and claustrophobic.<\/p>\n<p>Steeling his grip on himself, he quickly got out of bed and threw on the clothes he&#8217;d been wearing the previous night, a pair of bluejeans and a hooded sweatshirt. Glancing at the clock, he saw the red glow of 4:43 a.m. He pulled on his boots and laced them, grabbed his phone and keys, and walked out into the crisp pre-dawn air.<\/p>\n<p>As he often had decades earlier, running from the all-but-forgotten demons of his youth, he found himself walking toward the ocean through the empty, dark streets.<\/p>\n<p>He walked past the lagoon, the shadowy trees looming above languid, almost black water, along the manicured sands of Mothers&#8217; Beach, finally across the trendy little business strip to the bay. As he walked along the crescent of sand, still moving toward the ocean beyond the little bay, the tiniest sliver of golden sun appeared above the houses and trees across the bay.<\/p>\n<p>Until that moment, he&#8217;d just been\u00a0<em>walking. Not thinking.<\/em> Trying not to feel. Just trying to get away from whatever unknown fear had gripped him in dream so tightly that he feared it would crush the breath out of him.<\/p>\n<p>He searched inside himself for the sense of relief he thought the sun should bring. But all he found was a veil of vague and uneasy dread, pierced by a slim, rosy crescent.<\/p>\n<p>He walked a few steps down closer to the shore, the shift of perspective returning him to the moment just before sunrise. He surveyed the low line of houses, the mirror-like calm of the water. It was beautiful, he recognized numbly.<\/p>\n<p>So beautiful that it seemed a shame to waste it on this moment of vague and free-floating dread.<\/p>\n<p>He paused, pulled his phone out of his pocket, switched its camera on, held his breath just a moment and heard the simulated sound of a shutter snapping open and closed.<\/p>\n<p>_______________________________<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>From the very first zero<br \/>\nto the very last one<br \/>\nI can see what has happened<br \/>\nI can see what will come<\/p>\n<p>Like a train in a tunnel<br \/>\nlike a mole in a hole<br \/>\nlike a bullet in a barrel<br \/>\nI know where to go<\/p>\n<p><em>From the very first day<\/em><br \/>\n<em>to the very last night<\/em><br \/>\n<em>I\u2019ve been through the darkness<\/em><br \/>\n<em>but I\u2019m scared of the light<\/em><\/p>\n<p>From the very first zero<br \/>\nto the very last one<br \/>\nI can see what has happened<br \/>\nand I see what must come<\/p>\n<p><em>From the very first day<\/em><br \/>\n<em>to the very last night<\/em><br \/>\n<em>I\u2019ve been through the darkness<\/em><br \/>\n<em>but I\u2019m scared of the light<\/em><\/p>\n<div>(C)2013, TK Major<\/div>\n<p>The third (and final?) version of &#8220;Scared of the Light&#8221;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>(The title of this post is a light-hearted lift from the late, lamented Black Randy &#8212; of infamous LA punk\/funk provocateurs, Black Randy and the Metro Squad &#8212; whose first album was called, &#8220;Pass the Dust, I Think I&#8217;m Bowie.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d written out about three quarters of the lyrics and was settling into the chords and melody when I started roughing out the arrangement&#8230; something about the way it was going together really made me think of post-Berlin-era Bowie and, I dunno, I ran with it.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scared of the Light [Electric Version] &nbsp; When he awoke, it was dark. His heart was pounding. He felt as though a giant hand was wrapped around him, squeezing the breath out of his lungs. He must have been dreaming but he remembered nothing. He forced air into his lungs, but his breath felt odd [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,263,27,4],"tags":[280,117,92,285,283,281,284,273,282,272,316,286],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1121"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2739,"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1121\/revisions\/2739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}