It Wasn't My Son

Below are lyrics to the song Coming and Going on Easy Terms an example of musical craftmanship in its finest form.

It is a near perfectly penned gem written by musician John Vanderslice from an album called 'Cellar Door'.

This song is as close to authentic musical storytelling perfection that has ever dared to take a listener along for any a dark, uncertain and calamitous ride; it allows you to hold your breath while traveling alongside the agonizing singer and then to breath a deep sigh of relief at its finish, but in that instant of exhalation finding a clenched throat.

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Cellar Door

John Vanderslice

* COMING AND GOING ON EASY TERMS




window seats on bullet trains
smear land into sky
fear and sorrow coalesce

now I’m trying to find that quiet place
where living is breathing
not knowing is understanding
coming is going
but my heart just beats faster and faster

they asked for me to come
and identify my son
but my son is alive

the life that whispered in my ear
is gone gone gone
window seats, commuter trains
send me headlong

trying to find that quiet place
where living is breathing
not knowing is understanding
coming is going
but my heart just beats faster and faster

they asked for me to come
and identify my son
but my son is alive
in maharishi oblivion

the love that counted back
from ten is gone gone gone
fear and sorrow coalesce

now I’m trying to find that quiet place
where living is breathing
not knowing is understanding
coming is going
but my heart just beats faster

when I got down to the morgue
they pulled back the slab
it wasn’t my son
I wasn’t his dad

they covered him up
I smiled I smiled
the past is cities from a train

now I’m trying to find that quiet place
where living is breathing
not knowing is understanding
coming is going
but my heart just beats faster

(Music & Lyrics by John Vanderslice - Barsuk Records (2004)

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I am uncertain whether or not this song is based on an actual event in Mr. Vanderslice's life or not (it's hard to believe that it might not be...); the story telling is simple but transportive, the music goose-bump inducing as it wraps itself lovingly around the lyrics and a voice exemplary in setting the right tone in bringing you to within arms reach of its choking emotion.

I can't seem to get enough of it every time I listen to it.

My "portable music device" (one of, ahem, four...) is obsessed with this song, too, as it typically finds it's way there on shuffle mode often enough to be considered uncanny but stopping somewhere short of the supernatural (n.b. - I have over 15,000 songs on mine).

The revelatory stanzas never fail to send chills up and down my spine, "they pulled back the slab/it wasn't my son/I wasn’t his dad" and " now I’m trying to find that quiet place/where living is breathing/not knowing is understanding/coming is going".

Simple lines that sum up beautifully the constant ache of this mortal coil quite nicely ... not sentimental and with the appropriate portions for the composite tragicomedy we're all connected by:

Finding out it wasn't somebody you loved ... but it was somebody whom somebody loved.

Perfect.

(* You can hear this song by pressing the play button above - just please don't steal it; that wouldn't be very nice and you should just buy the album anyway - it's that good!)