That touchy/ feely song that everyone hates from the late 90’s,the one that plays on ASPCA commercials, that melody that manipulates the heart-strings, “Angel- Sarah McLachlan”
That song was about a keyboard player named Jonathan Melvoin, a rare and hyper talented person. From what I’ve read, a very tortured person, playing for the Smashing Pumpkins.
as the story goes, the drummer and the keyboard player ended up in a hotel room in London after a show, and they put a lot of heroin into their arms.
One woke up the next day, one did not.
This event inspired a person far,far away, to put down her feelings into a slow and somber melody.
“let me be empty, oh weightless and maybe, I’ll find some peace tonight”
Heroin does bring the sensation of weightlessness .
“it’s easier to believe in this sweet madness, oh this glorious sadness, that brings me to me knees”
I visualize zooming out on the planet, then I pretend every soul is giving off some little light, some little color all their own. Her light watched from very far away, as his special color extinguished. The event entered into her feelings, her thoughts and the minutes when she wasn’t paying attention to anything. His story nagged at her. For the shame of it, the waste of it, the unnecessary and the inevitable .
She swallowed it, processed it, then she did what I suppose a real artist does.
She made something, and she released this construction that traveled to the ears of anyone really listening. She used her light to change the color of all the other lights that would honestly listen. She projected with true sweetness,empathy and love.
“may you find some comfort here”
As I looked down from space, I could see all the little lights and colors taking in that message, digesting it and in rare cases, having their own color change just a little.
Countless numbers needed to hear that, incredible swaths of the people walking amongst us hurt in ways that so few understand, and they tell no one. They just take it. Every single goddamn day, they just take it and they escape wherever they can.
I don’t know if art is the receipt for pain.I don’t know if trauma begets talent . I know what she did with that event, was a really pure and really beautiful thing.
I am drawn to, externally grateful and fascinated by a real artist . Even if I don’t understand what they are, even after all these years.
And for the record, I’m not a huge fan of the song, i dunno, makes me sad. A light crying for the death of another light. But I find it to be very pure, if you know the story.
Fuck that dark,cold hotel room. Fuck heroin. Fuck the slow killers too, the drink and the tobacco.Fuck the root. Fuck whatever root leads such beautiful living things into such deaths. Fuck the robbing of time and experience and laughs.
Bums me out. I love what that song is, but it hurts a bit, because it’s very real. So fuck that song, I guess. But send some money to the ASPCA, they’re doing a good thing I guess,,, long as it’s not corrupt. But who really knows?
Jonathon Melvoin was very talented.
no drink today.
dawn 