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I watched the film "The Song Remains the Same" |
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At the midnight movies when I was a kid |
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At a Canton, Ohio mall with friends |
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One warm summer weekend |
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Jimmy Page stood tall on screen |
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And I was mesmerized by everything |
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The Peter Grant/John Paul Jones dream sequence scenes |
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The closeup of the mahogany double-neck SG |
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And though I love the sound of the roaring Les Paul |
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What spoke to me most was "Rain Song" and "Bron-Yr-Aur" |
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And I loved the thunder of John Bonham's drums |
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But even more, I liked "No Quarter" low Fender Rhodes' hum |
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I don't know what happened or what anyone did |
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But from my earliest memories, I was a very melancholic kid |
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When anything close to me at all in the world died |
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To my heart, forever, it would be tied |
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Like when my friend was thrown from his moped |
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When some kind of a big truck back-ended him |
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And when the girl who sat in front of me in remedial |
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Was killed in an accident one weekend |
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And quickly forgotten about at school |
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And when we got the call that my grandmother passed |
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The nervous tension I'd been feeling for months broke |
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And strangely, I laughed |
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Then I went to my bedroom and I laid down |
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And in my tears, and in the heaviness of everything I drowned |
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Though I kept to myself, and for the most part was pretty coy |
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I once got baited into clocking some undeserving boy |
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Out on the elementary school playground |
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I threw a punch that caught him off-guard and knocked him down |
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And when I walked away, the kids were cheering |
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And though I grinned, deep inside I was hurting |
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But not nearly as much as I'd hurt him |
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He stood up, his glasses broken and his face was red |
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And I was never a schoolyard bully |
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It was only one incident and it has always eaten at me |
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I was never a young schoolyard bully |
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And wherever you are, that poor kid, I'm so sorry |
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And when I grew older, I learned to play guitar |
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While everyone else was throwing around a football |
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Wearing bright colours the school issued them |
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Parroting passed-down phrases and cheerleading |
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I got a recording contract in 1992 |
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And from there, my name, my band and my audience grew |
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And since that time, so much has happened to me |
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But I discovered, I cannot shake melancholy |
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For forty-six years now, I cannot break the spell |
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I'll carry it throughout my life and probably carry it down |
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I'll go to my grave with my melancholy |
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And my ghost will echo my sentiments for all eternity |
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And now when I watch "The Song Remains the Same" |
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The same things speak to me that spoke to me then |
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Except now, the scenes with Peter Grant and John Bonham |
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Are different from when I think about the dust that fell upon them |
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I got a friend who lives in the desert outside Santa Fe |
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And I'm going to visit him this Saturday |
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Between my travelling and his divorces |
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And our time not being what it was |
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It's been fifteen years since I last saw him |
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He's the man who signed me back in '92 |
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And I'm going to go there and tell him face to face, |
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"Thank you." |
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For discovering my talent so early |
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For helping me along in this beautiful musical world |
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I was meant to be in |