Category Archives: Music

My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my…

Last fall, when planning out 20th anniversary posts for this website, I asked all of my friends’ children to send me a few songs that embodied me and ALANILAGAN.com in their minds. Each response was fascinating because it revealed a few things about what they each thought of me, and unintentionally, perhaps, a few things they thought about themselves. I’m slowly working my way through them, and one of the first ones that spoke to me illustrated the intuition and unexpected clairvoyance of Suzie’s daughter Oona.

Always sharp on the ways of humans, thanks to keen and practiced observation, Oona has had a prescient brilliance that set her quietly apart from the rest. I remember what it’s like to be a little different that way – a little quieter and more self-contained – and it has a tendency to work against you in the very ways you most want to reach out and connect. That ended up saving me some serious heartbreak, however, and I’m sure Oona is turning it to her own advantage. As for this song, at first I wondered why she chose it, and then I decided to write what it meant to me before I asked. Here is ‘Death By A Thousand Cuts’ by Taylor Swift, and as I listened to it an understanding of stories I’d forgotten I’d written began to unfold…

Saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts
Flashbacks waking me up
I get drunk, but it’s not enough
‘Cause the morning comes and you’re not my baby
I look through the windows of this love
Even though we boarded them up
Chandelier’s still flickering here
‘Cause I can’t pretend it’s ok when it’s not
It’s death by a thousand cuts

Upon first reading, the lyrics seem to indicate some sort of treatise on the demise of a romantic relationship, which is usually what Taylor does best. The first few listens I got some resonance from that, but then another relationship presented itself in my mind – my relationship with drinking – and suddenly this song became one of those flashpoints when everything comes brilliantly alive in frightening fashion. “I get drunk but it’s not enough…”

It’s been three and a half years since I last had a drink, and it’s not even something I think about all that often. So completely has my lifestyle changed in that time, along with the world, that it feels like a thousand years ago, but sometimes it’s good to remember, and to see how drinking might have become my death by a thousand cuts. 

I dress to kill my time
I take the long way home
I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be all right
They say, “I don’t know”
And what once was ours is no one’s now
I see you everywhere
The only thing we share
Is this small town

You said it was a great love
One for the ages
But if the story’s over
Why am I still writing pages?

When you use alcohol as a method of dealing with your demons, it takes on aspects of a very toxic relationship – the kind of relationships that slowly kills you rather than ending it in one fell swoop. It doesn’t start out that way, and for a while – a couple of decades in fact – it seduced and made it seem like that was the best way to solve any and all problems. It was my way of dealing with social anxiety, and unfair situations, and anger and loss and happiness and joy and celebration… well, you get the idea. It feeds on itself, and I could feel myself heading down a darker path that was alienating loved ones as much as I was alienating myself. My sense of self grew hazier with every martini, my bearings and judgment grew shakier with every glass of wine, and when you start to lose those things, you sometimes hold onto yourself by drinking more. 

‘Cause saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts
Flashbacks waking me up
I get drunk, but it’s not enough
‘Cause the morning comes and you’re not my baby
I look through the windows of this love
Even though we boarded them up
Chandelier still flickering here
‘Cause I can’t pretend it’s okay when it’s not
It’s death by a thousand cuts

On those mornings after I’d had too much, that was when it really hurt. It wasn’t the physical aspect of a hangover that was so debilitating and destructive – it was the emotional and mental state I’d be in, the incredibly depressing down that came from drowning myself in a depressant and thinking that would solve anything. The flashbacks woke me up…  I looked through the windows of the boarded-up love I shared with liquor… and I knew that liquor would never be my salvation, it would only be my death, no matter how insidiously long it took. Deadened by a thousand cuts…

In that gray haze, I would look around me at the world and wonder why I couldn’t just be like everyone else, why I never felt like I fit in, why everything felt so much harder and more difficult, why I needed a drink to make it all bearable. Slowly, I began to make sense of things, and on the day that it finally and fully dawned on me that my drinking was self-medication for social anxiety and how ill-at-ease I felt with myself and my place in the world, I decided to work on that, and the need – the want – the desire – for all that annihilation instantly dissipated. 

The bridge of this song hits harder when I think of all that I put myself through. A bridge is a powerful symbol – it can connect disparate places and parts, piecing things together that might not normally be joined. The rivers and ravines of our lives aren’t always without purpose, but when we create our own divisions and cuts and separations, sometimes we need a bridge. To heal, to join, to make us whole again. 

My heart, my hips, my body, my love
Trying to find a part of me that you didn’t touch
Gave up on me like I was a bad drug
Now I’m searching for signs in a haunted club
Our songs, our films, united we stand
Our country, guess it was a lawless land
Quiet my fears with the touch of your hand
Paper cut stings from our paper thin plans

Knowing that and stopping my drinking was relatively easy once I fully understood what was at work – the hard part was untangling all the things that my drinking had infiltrated and tied in knots. How to dismantle something that had formed such a pillar of my existence? Wasn’t the cocktail an integral part of what made me so fun? Wasn’t it the only thing that made me fun? A part of me that alcohol didn’t touch? A part of me that drinking didn’t take up? I was so mad at myself for not seeing it sooner, for letting it almost take over, I scream out the rest of the bridge in a rage. 

My time, my wine, my spirit, my trust
Trying to find a part of me you didn’t take up
Gave you so much but it wasn’t enough
But I’ll be all right, it’s just a thousand cuts

That’s the trick of drinking. It would never be enough, not for the reasons I thought I needed it. Once I saw that, and started to address the underlying reasons for it, I could let that relationship go. The clean-up and shift took some time, as it was a drastic life-change, but it felt so good that, as frightening as it was to deal with the real reasons for it, I knew it was worth it. Finding the way back to yourself after twenty-plus years of running away from that person isn’t easy. I’d hurt myself, and others, in all that time, and facing the man I’d become from a place of purity – from the place I was in before I started drinking – was uncomfortable and humbling – and precisely what I needed. It was good to see him again, to feel him still there, no matter how badly I hurt him just trying to do the best I knew to survive, to get us both through. We both did our best, and somehow we both came together, fully integrated all these years later, and ready to start again. 

I get drunk but it’s not enough
‘Cause you’re not my baby
I look through the windows of this love
Even though we boarded them up
Chandelier’s still flickering here
‘Cause I can’t pretend it’s ok when it’s not
No, it’s not

It’s death by a thousand cuts (you didn’t touch)
Trying to find a part of me that you didn’t touch
My body, my love, my trust (it’s death by a thousand cuts)
But it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t enough, no, no

I take the long way home
I ask the traffic lights if it’ll be all right
They say, “I don’t know”

The James Renaissance continues from this ‘Tomorrow’ post, with a preview of their new orchestral album ‘Be Opened By the Wonderful’ which sounds like it’s going to be aural ecstasy to my ears. ‘She’s A Star’ gains poignance and a more tender luster than its original incarnation through its orchestral treatment, and the lyrics come into greater focus without all the glorious guitar work and drum noise. 

Whenever she’s feeling empty, Whenever she’s feeling insecure

Whenever her face is frozen, Unable to fake it anymore

Her shadow is always with her, Her shadow could keep her small

So frightened that he won’t love her, She builds up a wall

Oh no, she knows where to hide in the dark, Oh no, she’s nowhere to hide in the dark

She’s a star… She’s a star

If this is any indication of how the new album will transform some classic James songs, I’m already on board. In the 20th year of this website, I’ve been indulging in some nostalgia of late. The advancing march of time feels especially swift these days, as I watch my parents, and now my friends, go through their health obstacles – mostly due to the simple act of getting older. I feel it in myself too – the blood pressure pills, the stubborn paunch, the more-salt-than-pepper hair, the failing eyesight, and the frustrating way I can’t remember anything that happened in the last five years, or five minutes. (I can still give you stellar and detailed examinations of what went down from 1996 through 2002, however – more than anyone needs to know, and largely useless in 2023.)

In this nostalgia, I find pockets of time when I see how badly I treated some people, and how badly I’ve treated myself. There is empathy for everything we went through, rather than the mean and arch way I’ve confronted discomfort from the past. When I look back at the young man I used to be, I find myself shaking my head and giving off the smallest laugh at what we did to each other, and at the guarded ways I tried so valiantly, and foolishly, to protect my heart. All the while, I failed to find the goodness there, and the real power in being open and vulnerable. Too concerned with being perfect, too afraid of losing love by not being perfect, I walked a tightrope with all the requisite tension and carefulness involved. There should have been more happiness, and a little part of me will always mourn that I didn’t allow myself to feel that. 

She’s been in disguise forever, She’s tried to disguise her stellar views

Much brighter than all this static, Now she’s coming through

Oh no, she knows where to hide in the dark, Oh no, she’s nowhere to hide in the dark

She’s a star… She’s a star

How often do we dim our lights or silence our speech so as not to be the lighthouse or the foghorn? They have real purpose and meaning – how dare we act like we carry the same right to be here, the same right to shine or scream? The caution we craft and create is the very thing holding us back, and so we play into the grand scheme designed to keep us quiet, to keep us behaving, to keep us exactly like everybody else. How dare we be different…

Don’t tell her to turn down

Put on your shades if you can’t see

Don’t tell her to turn down

Turn up the flame

She’s a star… She’s a star

The older I get, the more myself I feel, and the out-of-place awkwardness that peppered my youth has largely dissipated. Those years were helpful – they held their own lessons and imbued me with their own power – I just wish I had learned it all a little faster. But that’s no real reason for regret – it happened when it needed to happen. It happened when it was supposed to happen. If I look back with a bit of bitterness for not knowing better, it’s only because I’m a little happier with where I am today. 

And so the star-like journey of a life is played out, and like the real stars, each one is different and unique, each has its own lifespan and trajectory designed by destiny. Each of us finds our way to our own enlightenment like we find our way home. 

It’s a long road

It’s a great cause

It’s a long road

It’s a good call

You got it

You got it

She’s a star

Jake Shears just released a dance floor bop that brings me back to those full-throated dance divas of the 90’s, thanks to a featured vocal tour-de-force by Amber Martin. It’s the perfect antidote for a rainy Saturday night, when you need some inspiration, and a reminder of how fun Saturday night could and should be. Turn this one up, let go your mind and inhibitions, and set yourself free on the dance floor – even if it’s the kitchen these days. 

This one is from his upcoming solo album ‘Last Man Dancing’ which is poised to be the dance soundtrack for the summer of 2023. (Hoping it gets along with last summer‘s delightful ‘Renaissance.’) Summer music… is there a happier phrase or idea? 

Bonus post: an almost-naked Jake Shears for the fans. 

Everyone thinks the winter wind is the one that cuts the deepest, but it’s the wind of early spring, when things are heaving and breaking and melting, that carries the biggest risk of pushing you off the edge of a building. As I walked toward the moon, I felt the wind at my back, and the ledge of the observatory roof was a dim line straight ahead. Carrying a heavy heart, one that had already been broken before I could leave my teenage-years, and mostly by my own machinations, left my walk slow but deliberate. Resigned and intent. The seductive spell of a spring night had been whispered to me from the wind, and I moved away from my classmates, nearer the edge, nearer the forbidden space the professor had warned us against. 

I see you falling
How long to go before you hit the ground
You keep on screaming
Don’t you see me here
Am I a ghost to you?

Ahh, spring. Your treacherous offering of hope when what you really have to give is heartache. But you do it wrapped in a cherry blossom, nodding in the cheery self-obsession of a glade of narcissus, teasing from the tip of a tulip petal. Spring and all your madness, stripped in a storm, rendering all of us naked and tender and ill-equipped for the cold that’s still deep in the night, and still waiting for us in the morning. 

Now your grip’s too strong
You can’t catch love with a net or a gun
Gotta keep faith that your path will change
Gotta keep faith that your luck will change tomorrow
Tomorrow…

Back then, whether admitted or not (and for the most part I never admitted it to anyone) my only goal in life was to find a partner ~ a companion. I just didn’t want to go through it all alone. I was tired of being alone. 

I don’t think I’ve ever said that out loud. 

Not that I wasn’t good at being alone. Not that it had ever been a choice. I was simply ready to find someone with whom I might share a life – with whom I might make a life. And while I never put that into words then, as even I understood that wasn’t first date banter, my actions and desire spoke more than I ever could, frightening would-be suitors and maybe-friends away. Maybe, too, I knew that I wasn’t ready for it, and sabotaged myself before letting anything happen, before getting too carried away. But oh, what spring could seduce from the merest hints of connection, and oh how badly I wanted to be with someone. 

This song arrived just as I found myself without a girlfriend or boyfriend, and I sought out solace in my platonic friends, calling them late at night, wondering if they could sense my desperation, the terrifying need to not be alone at those dangerous hours. Anything but lonely… 

Why are you phoning?
What am I to do when you’re miles away?
You’re always calling from the darkest moods and we’re both scared…

Life then existed in letters and late night phone calls, hushed conversations held in indulgent secrecy, hidden from flatmates and strangers alike – that was how we kept in touch, how we made connections. There wasn’t texting or FaceBook or seeing someone’s whole life history. We only knew what we were told, and what we could read in between the laughter and sighs, much of it was made-up – and all of it better than the false-transparency of what we put out on social media today. 

Back then you had to trust your friends to stick with you despite distance and time, and it didn’t always work. Even the closest among us found ourselves growing apart – it couldn’t be helped – but I railed against that, struggling to stay in touch, wrangling us together for parties and gatherings, even when no one knew what to say. Because it mattered, didn’t it? That we had been through it together. That we had been through that formative part of life, that we knew each other before we knew ourselves. It had to matter. As soon as the thought formed, I knew that time in our lives had passed. I knew also that I would not let it go so easily, finding the nets and guns and forces to keep us intact and together. That was my purpose. 

Now your grip’s too strong
You can’t catch love with a net or a gun
Gotta keep faith that your path will change
Gotta keep faith that your love will change

Every spring, I listened to this song, and every spring seemed to get a little less lonely. It revealed different meanings as the years passed, changing from a lesson in how to get through a lonely night to a lesson in learning how not to force things, especially love. That was a lesson I needed more than most. My friends could always keep their heads when it came to crushes and obsessions – I lost mine, and willingly gave away my heart in the process. I listened to ‘Tomorrow’, as I listened for tomorrow, and slowly I began to understood the mantra:

Now your grip’s too strong
Can’t catch love with a net or a gun
Gotta keep faith that your path will change
Gotta keep faith that your love will change tomorrow

It was on a summer evening – and even though I certainly didn’t feel like I had any semblance of shit together, looking back, that was the beginning of when I started to pull it together. Or at least put forth the appearance of keeping things together. Getting by, and getting on with it. The first steps in being ok with being alone. I knelt down to tie my sneakers, then grinned at the light still pouring into the bedroom window. Summer in Boston beckoned, and I ran into the South End as neighbors took their dinner plates onto their front steps. 

Running every night was my little way of getting out in the world. Too socially-anxious to prowl the bars or clubs on a regular basis (and certainly never on my own when everyone else had departed the city for the summer) I connected to people from the distance of speed and flight, as I raced the streets of Boston, running away as much as I was running toward something. I spent most nights spent and heated, a late-night shower to cool off, and then a spell of reading in the bedroom. Slowly, I was learning to love being by myself. Something told me I needed to do that – genuinely and authentically – if I was ever going to learn to love someone, and let them love me in return. 

I’m just out of your range
Tomorrow
All your suffering’s in vain
Tomorrow

“This song was written as an attempt to stop a close friend jumping off the roof.” ~ James

I didn’t know that this was the origin of this song. It never meant that to me, but it makes sense about why it spoke to me on so many levels, and so deeply. This has always been one of my favorite songs, one that has withstood time and place. And James has always been my favorite band. (Relax, Madonna is not a band.) I loved them since they wore dresses and ate bananas for the cover of their absolute best album ‘Laid’. That song cycle informed my life at its most crucial and influential moments – when the soul was solidifying into what it will always be. 

Now your grip’s too strong
You can’t catch love with a net or a gun
Gotta keep faith that your path will change
Gotta keep faith that your love will change tomorrow

This song reminds me that it’s ok to sink low sometimes, to walk toward the ledge and wonder about jumping off. No sane person would witness what we do to each other and not wonder at the futility of this world. How could we not want to off ourselves now and then? We weren’t designed to withstand such cruelty, but here we are, doing our best, doing it together whether we realize it or not. It’s there in a late-night phone call from a friend, an unexpected letter in the mail, a FaceBook message from a stranger just checking in – all these little ways we show that we care, that people are worth a little suffering and pain, that we are alive in this exquisitely imperfect and fucked-up world, and for the most part we are each doing our best to be better for each other. 

I got out of your range
Tomorrow
All your suffering seems vain
Change tomorrow
Some forgiveness now
Tomorrow
Love’s no sacred cow

From the outside, the little wooden storage shed sagged like a well-worn face, caving in on itself with years of weight and rot and worry. Inside, it looked no better, with crooked shelves only half-heartedly hanging on, and piles of debris and rusty tools dangerously strewn about. The air in the dilapidated structure was still and stifling. Bits of dust floated in the light that managed to intrude through the broken windows hung heavily with spider webs; any bits of glass that remained were coated with grime. It was the perfect hiding place for a kid, or for a dirty book, and both were present on this summer day. It was also an unlikely location for an introduction to sex, but most of us don’t get to choose how we first brush up against that. Dropping my bike at the door, I shut the rickety thing behind me and began my furtive exploration of that word which suddenly tingled with illicit thrill and danger.

There’s things that you guess

And things that you know

There’s boys you can trust

And girls that you don’t

There’s little things you hide

And little things that you show

Sometimes you think you’re gonna get it

But you don’t and that’s just the way it goes.

Earlier that day, we’d been hanging around with my brother’s friend, who lived a few blocks away. Back then, we’d hop on our bikes before we even had breakfast, jump from pool to pool and house to house, and not return home until it was time for an early dinner. We were roaming through his friend’s house – nobody’s parents were home during the day then – playing hide and seek or giving chase the way that kids do, and at one point I found myself upstairs alone. His sister’s bedroom door was open and on the wall was a poster of George Michael in a skimpy white Speedo. All that I was supposed to feel toward a poster of Kelly LeBrock hit me when I gazed upon the hairy, lithe body of Mr. Michael, squinting happily from some beach in Greece, backed by a blue sky and flagrantly displaying most of his skin in wet, glistening form. I was transfixed and bewitched all at once, and I remember standing there stunned, caught by the surprise of all that I was feeling, and not understanding any of it.

I swear I won’t tease you

Won’t tell you no lies

Don’t need no bible

Just look in my eyes

I’ve waited so long baby

Now that we’re friends

Every man’s got his patience

And here’s where mine ends

Eventually, I roused myself from my visual inquisition, but soon made excuses to go back upstairs, where I surreptitiously indulged in more lustful gazing and looking. My awakening to a physical attraction was confusing, but came in what felt like completely natural form. This wasn’t something I had been conditioned to experience – if anything, I was waiting for the day when I found the same reaction to a woman, and that day would never come. This was a primal, powerful impulse that drew my eyes and head and heart to a handsome man with a teasing smile, speaking to something deep within, speaking to something I’d never seen portrayed in fairy tales or books or television. It was the same stirring I was starting to feel when our neighbor – some blond high school boy who seemed so much older than us then – doffed his shirt and ruggedly strode into our pool on the hottest summer days.

I want your sex

I want your love

I want your sex

I want your sex.

The dim, shadowy recesses of that house fade into memory here, and our little band of boys moves back outside, into the sun, into the heat, rolling down banks of green grass, horsing around as boys do, making the most of summer by doing the absolute least, and somehow exerting all our energy in the process. We found our way into that barely-standing wooden shed that was set nearer the road and away from the house. My brother’s friend beckoned us in and showed us a pile of paperback romance novels, some pages of which had been earmarked, and we took turns reading what would likely amount to some very tame sex scenes today. At the time, however, they were gleefully scandalous to our naïve eyes. More than that, they made room for the imagination to take over, and mine was thirsty, boundless, and bold.

It’s playing on my mind

It’s dancing on my soul

It’s taken so much time

So why don’t you just let me go

I’d really like to try

Oh I’d really love to know

When you tell me you’re gonna regret it

Then I tell you that I love you but you still say no

Sex, then, began as a matter of the mind. That’s where it was taking place, that’s where my notions of it were forming, and that’s where it felt most exciting. When reading about it in some cheap paperback novel, my mind focused on the man. Unforced and unswayed by all the hetero-normative shit around me, I still wanted to connect with the guy instead of the girl. My body, my physical and mental make-up, and my own baseline of emotion were all drawn to the male form. It was natural, it was elemental, it was where my first inklings originated. Only when social constructs and pressures came into play did I realize what I was feeling would be deemed wrong. That sort of shame was almost irrevocably harmful, and it’s the sort of thing that would shade many of my subsequent romantic relationships. 

I swear I won’t tease you

Won’t tell you no lies

Don’t need no bible

Just look in my eyes

I’ve waited so long baby

Out in the cold

But I can’t take much more girl

I’m losing control

Back then, it was more innocent. Before the shame, there was only curiosity and the inquisitive pinprick of wanting to know more. The boys left the shed, but I lingered, telling them I’d catch up later. This was forbidden treasure, and I wasn’t ready to let it go. I quickly thumbed through the pages of the scandalous tome, re-reading certain passages to better grasp what was going on in all the metaphors and coded descriptions – the way humans sometimes do their best to disguise and beautify sex. I don’t even think I got a hard-on (surely I didn’t hop on my bike with a chub and gym shorts and ride through the streets of Amsterdam on that summer day) because it was more fascinating than arousing at such a young age. Still, I knew what direction I was headed in, even if I didn’t fully fathom the ramifications, and my cock was pointing me to men. I speak so frankly not in an effort to demystify sex, but to celebrate its integral and healthy place in our lives. That my first sexual explorations would be found in a book is fitting for someone who finds enthrallment and passion in a chosen cadence of words. 

It’s natural

It’s chemical

It’s logical

Habitual

It’s sensual

But most of all

Sex is something that we should do

Sex is something for me and you.

Sex is natural, sex is good

Not everybody does it

But everybody should

Sex is natural, sex is fun

Sex is best when it’s one on one

One on one

Leaving the book in its run-down shed, I got back on my bike and rode away, rejoining the boys for whatever our next adventure was, and returning to the cares of a summer that felt endless and all-to-brief all at once. At night, alone in bed, when the air-conditioning gave off the slightest, softest moans, and I still couldn’t cool down, my mind would return to that poster and that book, and ideas of men started the beautiful haunting that would dog me for all the days since. 

What’s your definition of dirty baby?

What do you consider pornography?

Don’t you know I love you till it hurts me baby?

Don’t you think it’s time you had sex with me? 

Tore up and wore up from the floor up, this past week has been troubling and trying and totally typical of a full-moon week. While the proverbial shit hits the fan, I’m simply going to open up a rainbow-colored umbrella and carry on. That’s what the weekend affords: the nonchalant walk-away.

Don’t I make it look easy, baby
When I do what I do? (Uh-huh)
Don’t I make it look easy, baby? 
Well, I’m foolin’ you

I just posted a picture, read all the comments
Hearted the good ones if I’m bein’ honest, uh-huh
I mighta spent an hour on it…

You won’t ever see me cry (I’m not cryin’)
‘Cause I’ve got a filter for every single lie

It’s not easy to make them look after all these years, even if it’s second nature by this side-to-late stage of my life. Still, it passes the time. It makes a day. And in this Meghan Trainor bop it forms the thrust of the narrative. 

You think I live that lavish life, happy life?
But you don’t know I’m up all night
Worry ’bout my body type
I wonder if I’m what they like?
But I should just say “fuck it,” right?

Oh, and you won’t ever see me cry (I’m not cryin’)
‘Cause I’ve got a filter for every single lie

The faces and bodies we present on social media – the clothes and personae we present to the world – they make it look however we want it to look, but how much is real? How much is authentic? On our worst days, even on our only-somewhat-trying days, no one knows what’s really going on in our lives. Spouses and family members have only slightly more of a clue. Sometimes the mere act of showing up takes more effort and mental energy than performing in front of a crowd of thousands. You just never know when it comes to people. 

Don’t I make it look easy, baby (Uh-huh)
When I do what I do? (When I do what I do)
Don’t I make it look easy, baby? Ah (Ah)
Well, I’m foolin’ you
Don’t I make it look easy, baby? (Ah; uh-huh)
I’m good at keepin’ my cool (I’m good at keepin’ my cool)
Don’t I make it look easy, baby? Ah (Ah)
Well, I’m foolin’ you

So here’s to all the people who put on the pretend just to get through the day, the ones who make it look easy when they feel like it’s all crumbing on the inside, when they aren’t sure of anything other than how to make it look good. 

I know I ain’t the only one who feels like this
Gettin’ good at hidin’ all this mess (Gettin’ good)
I’m tired (She’s tired)
Oh, Lord, I’m tired (Yeah, she’s tired)