What's So Wrong with Suicide?

I once saw a cartoon in M.A.D. magazine where a fellow is standing on a dock watching a dollar bill with wings fly away from him as a symbol of his lost wealth. He ties a ball and chain on his leg and jumps into the sea. On the bottom, he lands next to a treasure chest bursting with gold and jewels. The title of the cartoon was "Look Before You Leap".

That's the inspiration for this song of mine (see video below). I've never truly been suicidal, but like most everyone, I've known severe depression at times. But, it always passes and life gets worth living again. Still, I began to wonder, what happens if you succomb to the darkness and then change your mind after it is too late? Consider this song a cautionary tale.

(I wrote this song back in the early 1970s when I was in my late teens):



Here's the same song as I re-recorded it last year:



Finally, here's the music track only (no voices) from the re-recording. It's a bit monotonous, but it builds nicely and you can hear the string section a lot better. I think it stands by itself pretty well:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tannin Sensitivity (Sensitivity to Tannins)

Here's the ungarnished truth about tannins and tannin sensitivity. As you probably know, tannins are astringent polymers that naturally occur in coffee, tea, red wine and chocolate (among the most popular dietary sources). Effects of Tannins: Tannins may cause migraines, joint pain that mimics artheritis, tiredness, depression, bowel problems, problems with vision when focussing, digestion problems, thin brittle skin, perhaps hair loss and slow hair growth, and myriad other symptoms, both subtle and severe. For years I suffered a series of symptoms that I had pinned on coffee, uncertain about tea, and pretty sure were tied to red wine - no problem with chocolate. These symptoms were such diverse elements as - lethargy, tiredness, depression, joint pain in hips, shoulders and fingers, thin brittle skin, hair loss, slowed hair growth, slowed metabolism and even acid reflux and heartburn and diminished ability to focus closely, requiring reading glasses. I tried experim
Read more

The War Between Creativity and Structure

Image
Perhaps the greatest hurdle in writing is the attempt to bring structure to a story without putting your Muse in a straight jacket. Often structure is brought into the picture too soon, clamping your passion into an iron maiden that pierces it more deeply with every turn of a structural screw until it bleeds out entirely. In contrast, writing with purposeless abandon creates a jellyfish of a story: an amorphous blob of subject matter with no spine, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The  Master Storyteller Method  was designed to bring passion and structure together seamlessly, at the right place and the right time in the story development process. When first starting to write, our ideas usually come fast and furious. Many of them are little snippets: a notion for a line of dialog, a location in which some action will take place, the basic concept for a character, or perhaps a plot twist. Sometimes, we begin with no more than a period of history or a topic or an et
Read more