Why there is not Midnight Train to Florida and other wisdom derived from pop songs.

Why there is not Midnight Train to Florida and other wisdom derived from pop songs.

                There is no Midnight Train to Florida, or Georgia, or hardly anywhere in the South.  When my father moved to Pensacola about three years ago I tried to find a train south and there pretty much aren’t any.  I could go through New Orleans or go through Washington DC.  So, there is no Midnight Train to Georgia, because, to my experience, there aren’t any trains to Georgia, or Florida for that matter.

                Then there is the very song “Midnight Train to Georgia” is all about retreat.  Basically, the man in the song “He couldn’t make it, so he’s going back to life he knew before….He found out the hard way, dreams don’t always come true.” All the other songs I have heard about leaving are all about retreat.  I don’t know if I’m retreating as much as reinventing.  Right now, I feel like there is as much to look forward to as I am leaving behind.

“LA Song” by Beth Hart is also about leaving heartbreak and sorrow.  She needs to leave all the liars and find some kind of “home.”  There is even a reference to the subject suicidal contemplation.  She sings about a gun calls the “lucky one.”  The listener can’t help but conclude that leaving town is an alternative to suicide.  “Man I’ve got out of this town…out of this pain… and out of LA.”   But when she gets to Alabama she finds another man to “take her in” and finds just as much heartbreak and liars.  “It’s a different place, but the same old thing.”

“It’s all she loves, It’s all she hates. It’s all too much for her to take.  She can’t be sure just where it ends, or where the good life begins.”  In the first few two verses and chorus, she uses “she” as if the girl in LA is someone else.  In the last chorus she says, “I can’t be sure where it begins, or if the good life lies within.”

So everyone out there who reminds me “wherever you go, there you are” I know, I know.  But I NEED to reinvent myself.  Or rather, I need to brush away my fear, my fear of myself.  I mean this honestly and without pride: I am a complex, intelligent, multi-faceted person that grouses at conformity, not only the very idea but also because I know I CANNOT fit in.  I know, I’ve tried, for thirty-five lonely failure ridden years.  And I wonder how much of that loneliness and failure is because I was not being my “authentic” self.  How much was it because I was not following my true nature, “God’s will”, even, for my life.  Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on one’s perspective) I believe I am supposed to be a writer.  Damn it!  Why can’t I be destined to be something concrete and with a steady paycheck?  Often I wish I were “called” to be something else, something that wouldn’t make me so goddamned “deep” or intimidating where I have to feel every little emotion.  More on that later.   

The fear is that if I truly was MYSELF that I will no longer be loved.  But being loved for someone you’re not is not love either.  To quote “Defying Gravity” from Wicked:

“Too long I’ve be afraid of losing love I’ve guessed I’ve lost.  Well, if that’s love, it comes to much too high a cost…Too late for second guessing, too late to go back to sleep, it’s time to trust my instincts. Now it’s time, to leap.” 

No one retreats to Florida.  No one “slinks off in defeat” to the Sunshine State.  No, people ASPIRE (and retire) to paradise.  Okay, so it’s six paces from the sun in July and August feels like an armpit, but still.  Orange, peach, and pecan trees in your backyard!  And the beach and sun and surf!  Like my father jokes, “We don’t live in paradise, we live across the street.”  I have a crappy job here in Indiana, I’m sure if I can find an equivalently crappy (probably better) job down in Florida.  Besides, I can work on the book we know I have in me.  Maybe all that sunshine will loosen my fingers and get some black on white.  All this drama in my life has to happen for a reason, I mean come on; this stuff happens complete with sitcom timing.

“And if I’m flying solo, at least I’m flying free.  To those who ground, me take a message back from me…. I’m defying gravity….So if you care to find me, look to the (Southern) sky.”

                One last nugget of truth from U2’s “Walk On.”

                “The only baggage is all that you can’t leave behind.”

                “What you’ve got, they can’t steal it, no they can’t even feel it.”

                “I know it aches, and your heart it breaks, you can only take so much….walk on… you’ve got to leave it behind.”