The following song began in a dream a couple years ago. It had nothing to do with politics, much less John McCain, but was sung by a carpenter friend of mine upon learning that Madonna intended to divorce him. At that time it was just the chorus:
a seasoned piece of wood
cut up and dried out
for someone else’s good
It was one of those luminous moments in dreams that leave an imprint, a vague sense of imperative. I woke up, figured out the chords and recorded it.
Not long after that, from the chorus emerged a first verse, which both falsified the origin of the chorus while making plain the sense of the words:
that Jesus Christ said
when he was hanging on the cross
wishing he was dead
with the sinners all around him
and the lovers at his feet
he spoke these words to them
and they passed them on to me
he said
There it sat for a couple years… till this past month, with the election nearing its end, and the historical writing appearing on the wall. Real songs have that same quality as dreams and ideas: they emerge of themselves. I generally feel the presence of a song before it happens. The last verse, concerning Mr. McCain, was no different. For months I’d felt the carpenter’s song was done. Another verse had seemed impossible, given the fact that these were supposed to have been the final words of Jesus Christ. Perhaps it was my Catholic upbringing, but likening anything else to that experience seemed wrong.
Then I started to understand McCain in an analogous way which snapped me out of religious fascination and into an awareness of the general quality of the feeling described in the song.
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