642 Things to write about #4

Write a song…no chance. I can’t sing, so writing a song is a mysterious process that I have never attempted. And never will.

I have never been tempted, not even when I was in the depths of despair over some failed romance (many, many years ago) and would relentlessly replay “our” favourite songs. Songwriting, like HTML code, is something I leave to the experts.

Listening to songs, now that is a different matter.

I am not an obsessive, like my husband. He has thousands, and thousands of tracks on his iPod, iPad and iPhone. He never has a day without music.

I dip in and out. And get passions. My current favourite is Bruce Springsteen’s Wrecking Ball which according to Rolling Stone, is Springsteen’s most “despairing, confrontational and musically turbulent” album.

It may well be…I also find it uplifting, because underneath his rage at the economic havoc wreaked by an uncaring elite, lies optimism. A bitter, twisted optimism perhaps, but still I find it makes my spirit soar, as well as my hackles rise.

My favourite song is Jack of All Trades, which makes me cry every time I hear it. It is about my father, my husband and my sons, and every father, husband and son who has worked his fingers to the bone to look after his family.

The banker man grows fatter, the working man grows thin
It’s all happened before and it’ll happen again
It’ll happen again, they’ll bet your life
I’m a Jack of all trades and, darling, we’ll be alright

Now sometimes tomorrow comes soaked in treasure and blood
Here we stood the drought, now we’ll stand the flood
There’s a new world coming, I can see the light
I’m a Jack of all trades, we’ll be alright

So you use what you’ve got, and you learn to make do
You take the old, you make it new
If I had me a gun, I’d find the bastards and shoot ’em on sight
I’m a Jack of all trades, we’ll be alright
I’m a Jack of all trades, we’ll be alright