{"id":23,"date":"2005-10-08T22:08:00","date_gmt":"2005-10-09T05:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/?p=23"},"modified":"2015-11-19T11:07:16","modified_gmt":"2015-11-19T19:07:16","slug":"big-nasty-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/2005\/10\/08\/big-nasty-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Big, Nasty World"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GetW<\/span>hen I was a kid, I was so hungry for life I just couldn’t imagine how people would want<\/span> to escape samsara, the illusory world of seemingly endless life and death that Vedic religions believe traps us all — at least unless or until we can achieve ultimate union with God by transcending the desires and fears that bind us to this life. (Or that’s my twenty-five cent write-up, anyhow.)<\/p>\n

But after I’d kicked around a few more decades I started understanding how someone could become world weary<\/span> — even in the heart of what many folks here in the temporal world might consider a demi-paradise. It isn’t so hard for me, now, to imagine how someone in, say, the slums of Calcutta, might long for union with the source of everything — particularly if it got him out of the slums of Calcutta.<\/p>\n

Anyway, now I appreciate the stoic nobility of those who “soldier on” in the face of everyday challenge to their sense of purpose — no matter how temporal — how ephemeral<\/span> — that purpose might be.<\/p>\n

That said, the melodrama in this song cracks me the heck up.<\/p>\n

It was<\/span> a challenging time for me when I wrote it and it would have been more so had I known what would unfold in the years to come. All the same, the melodrama cracks me up and that’s why I think I really like this song. It was like I was trying to perfect my “street walk” to get through the very tough neighborhood of what us over the hill types like to think of as the downhill slide.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

BIG NASTY WORLD<\/p>\n

wake up each morning
\nand I reach for my bible
\nI reach for my razor
\nand I reach for my gun<\/p>\n

I reach for the dream
\nI was dreaming last night
\nbut each single morning
\nthat dream is gone<\/p>\n

’cause it’s a<\/span>
\nbig nasty world<\/span>
\nterrible mean place<\/span>
\nIt’s hard to stay alive<\/span>
\nand it’s hard to keep the faith<\/span><\/p>\n

its a rotten world<\/span>
\na grim shabby place<\/span>
\nbut out of the endless depths of time
\nyou’re here today<\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>
\nI’m tired of living
\nand I’m tired of dying too
\nI’m tired of tomorrow
\nand all the shhh that I’ve been thru
\nI’m tired of forever
\nand I’m tired of yesterday
\nI’m tired of never
\nand the man the child became<\/p>\n

’cause it’s a big nasty world…<\/span><\/p>\n

I used to love ya baby
\nand you know that’s true
\nI used to love God
\nand you know that too
\nI used to love myself
\nIt was the hardest of all
\nI loved the whole GD world
\nbut that was before the Fall<\/p>\n

’cause it’s a<\/span>
\nbig nasty world<\/span>
\nterrible mean place<\/span>
\nIt’s hard to stay alive<\/span>
\nand it’s hard to keep the faith<\/span><\/p>\n

its a rotten world<\/span>
\na grim shabby place<\/span>
\nbut out of the endless depths of time<\/span>
\nhoney, you’re here today<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid, I was so hungry for life I just couldn’t imagine how people would want to escape samsara, the illusory world of seemingly endless life and death that Vedic religions believe traps us all — at least unless or until we can achieve ultimate union with God by transcending the desires […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,340,27],"tags":[120,126,124,125,123,122,121],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23"}],"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=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2366,"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/2366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ayearofsongs.org\/blg\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}