Last Testament songs?

[Rutlefan]

Artists can be (tend to be) a self-destructive lot. Long list of great ones who died too young of course. Sometimes they wrote a song that seems to have foretold their imminent passing, or summed up a life of lost opportunities or regret. The one that gets me the most is Jeffrey Lee Pierce's Idiot Waltz. From the last Gun Club album, Lucky Jim (not usually noted among Gun Club's best, but it's my personal favorite after the incomparable debut Fire of Love and great "comeback" LP Mother Juno). Published in '94, two years before his passing in '96, Pierce had been in failing health with death seemingly around the corner for several years when this was written. Besides being near death, The Gun Club at that time had been mostly been forgotten by the larger public and music press. Deservedly, due in part to Henry Rollins and others, they seem to again be getting the recognition they deserve.

 

Anyway, The Gun Club's Idiot Waltz. If you don't know this band you must check them out. Start with Fire of Love, then The Las Vegas Story to round out their LA post-punk/"psychobilly" (a la X, for example) phase, and Mother Juno and Luck Jim for their later bluesy introspective stuff.

 

That line don't make it here no more

Nothing reanimates the old times

Black clouds to the west

Darkness closing from the east side...

 

Now, winds of change

Are blowing out the fire

I feel your breath on my neck

I hear the darkness and wires...

 

It was foolish to be alive

It was foolish in a foolish time

Turn on the headlights for the idiot waltz

Turn on the lights, watch us fall

 

Edited February 16, 2017 by Rutlefan

[vitalsigns318]

Our spirit often taps into our future. Songwriters often express their destiny in metaphors. My husband wrote a song in his teens that became his destination in his early twenties. Neil closed every chapter in Ghost Rider with lyrics that related to his tragedy. It is important as artists to express what our spirit is writing, but it is also important to heal from mental and physical limitations from our creative endeavors and inspire other people in the process.

[Rutlefan]

^ Nicely put. Thanks.