The Autism Diaries?! (Part 36)

A new occasional series here at “Sounds Good“

“You’re stuck with yourself and a rage that can hurt you”, that’s what Lou Reed said. And it sits in my head. I used to furiously (ha!) copy out song lyrics. The old fashioned way: Pause/Rewind/Play/Pause/Rewind/Play — all around my room the words that meant the most to me. An eclectic range of poets of the day: Tracy Chapman and Roger Waters and Suzanne Vega and David Bowie and Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell and Billie Holiday and Stevie Wonder and Bruce Hornsby. And Lou Reed. I had folders and folders of lyrics, handwritten, and some of them with oily blu-tack marks from where they’d been on a wall. Some of them I even typed up after, and consider that my first real writing class. Teaching myself — mechanically — to type. And taking on board all those lyrics. Adding them to my database, my knowledge, my life. “You have to be very strong, ‘cause you’ll start from zero over and over again”. Sometimes I wanted to read the lyrics to people, point them to anyone that entered my room. “When the past makes you laugh and you can savour the magic/that let you survive your own war/You find that that fire is passion/and there's a door up ahead not a wall”. Lou Reed was my first writing teacher, a friend when I sat in my room alone. I was never quite stuck with myself, not then anyway. That happens later. Lou’s rage couldn’t hurt me. It was instructive; an inspiration. And his song Magic and Loss has always felt like some guiding light. I made the decision more than 30 years ago that I’d have Magic and Loss playing at my funeral. But whenever I told anyone they handled that news uneasily. I was just putting it out there, I mean I’m not going to be in control of the music one day. Shock. Horror. But people are scared and will call anything a morbid thought. I just think Lou singing “There’s a bit of magic in everything/And then some loss to even things out” is a boss move as a coffin moves slowly down the aisle. The bigger, better, more-boss move is one of those trademark ugly/beautiful guitar solos lighting that church into fire. It’s the one aspect of death that calms me no end. When I hit the wall, I think of that door up ahead…