Wayback Machine

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I listened to Country music until I was about fourteen, maybe fifteen. I ran into AC/DC at about that age and... never looked back. I still don't like a lot of the rock from the previous era. I always thought some groups were simply too creepy and others just wrong. While AC/DC wasn't my social style, there were aspects of it I understood.

This was the first song from AC/DC that pulled my chain. No, I never believed I was headed toward hell, nor interested in being so. But I realized something long ago. The highway to heaven IS the highway to hell, just the opposite direction. Along the way I met a lot of people who had no desire to get to heaven. And, being what I am meant that there would be... problems. I still remember busting up the kid who attacked me for not wanting to smoke pot with him. Broke his nose in two places and just... hurt him. Now, that was sixth grade. He had a friend, a junior in high school, who took me down hard (but not without a fight, for what it was worth).

This one was more about focus. It was one of the early favorites too. Usually a lone wolf with various packs I could hitch with from time to time, my return to a group might be hailed with cheer (by all but the otherwise alpha). I had one group in which all of us were... top dogs. While short lived, that was my favorite clan. We might have competed but we all had cut out our own little world. We encroached on each other's ground for fun and sport, no blood needed, mostly. I've got more than nine lives, it seems.

Paint it black is a song I somehow knew the first time I heard it. This music and what follows came later, after AC/DC, and when I was finally able to choke down the whole hippie crap enough to find diamonds in the rough. It explains most of my life. Too much loss, too much gone, too fast, too hard, too much. I have learned to get beyond it. I even enjoy life. But the dark spots will never be gone. The song, as I hear it, is about a man who loses his young wife/woman to childbirth. A man who had seen no real darkness or hardship in his life before that. For me... I just understand the summation. Paint it black, indeed.

This one is how I felt for most of my life. You don't fight dozens, nearly a hundred times, only to just... be typical. Especially when they are rarely your choice. Earlier on in life I was sure I was being chased, later on I realized I had become the predator. I didn't hunt the sheep, but wolves. Still, at times, and more so earlier on, I wondered just who was what in the whole good guy versus bad guy thing. Can a good guy be bad? Can a bad guy be good? I'm still not absolutely certain. Which means I don't know how far you can go before you go beyond forgiveness. It's not gray, it is black and white. I just... can't... see the lines.

Of course, songs themed around women seemed to have my ear too. I did a lot of bad things with and for women. They can lead you wrong without an effort sometimes, even innocently. Hormones are a bitch. Ask a dog what life would be without a bitch though. And... I'm certainly a dog. Or... think of it this way. Shut up.

See what I mean? Never mind.

Of course, there were 'teh womenz'. Oh yeah, I fell for this one right away too. Though I may have known this one long before AC/DC. Oh, the promises she makes. I already knew that all she said was just a promise she couldn't keep. I knew all about matches and walking by then. Still, it's like with gifts, it's... the thought that counts.

One of my favorite, early, women rockers. But the song, I knew, was in American Gigolo. Never saw the movie but I knew what it meant. Never was a paid player, but... close enough at one time. Ladies only, of course. This next one goes with that last, in it's own way. Junior high music, but I knew this one. Still had my "babysitter" on my brain. Still do, actually. Doesn't look too different from Joan, either.