A musical twist on our recent Egyptian excursion for our Solid Gold summer, this song is neither very Arabian in sound or disco in beat, and it comes courtesy of The Lumineers. It also suddenly has deeper meaning, while dovetailing with the Nile and the sparking gold themes this summer has wrought. Summer always seems to turn more serious than we ever want it to be, and that can’t be helped.
I was Cleopatra, I was young and an actress
When you knelt by my mattress, and asked for my hand
But I was sad you asked it, as I laid in a black dress
With my father in a casket, I had no plans, yeah
And I left the footprints, the mud stain on the carpet
And it hardened like my heart did when you left town
But I must admit it, that I would marry you in an instant
Damn your wife, I’d be your mistress just to have you around
But I was late for this, late for that, late for the love of my life
And when I die alone, when I die alone, die I’ll be on time, ah, yeah
Hurtling toward the last days of my fiftieth year here on earth, I suppose it’s as good a time as any to consider death, even if it’s in an abstract or musical way – perhaps it’s easier that way too. I’ve brushed up against it at such an early age, it doesn’t scare me – it never has – in some ways it feels like a friend I haven’t seen for many years, but with whom I can pick up and rejoin as if no time at all has passed. Better to make some sort of peace with the end than fight it – as it comes for everyone.
While the church discouraged, any lust that burned within me
Yes my flesh, it was my currency, but I held true
So I drive a taxi, and the traffic distracts me
From the strangers in my backseat, they remind me of you
But I was late for this, late for that, late for the love of my life
And when I die alone, when I die alone, when I die I’ll be on time
And the only gifts from my Lord were a birth and a divorce
But I’ve read this script and the costume fits, so I’ll play my part
For so much of my life, every day was a pose, an act, an expectation delivered from the perfectionist nature of a Virgo who didn’t dare deviate from what he thought the world wanted. A series of guises, all in service of hiding who I really was – and even when I finally came into my own and accepted who I was, the pattern was set, the lines etched too deep in my forehead, the pathways of the brain already too well-tread to re-route. It was sometimes easier to pretend, always safer, and usually worked out better anyway. If someone were to see behind the curtain, I didn’t trust they would like it, and I cared too much about what other people thought back then. It makes for a sticky way of being true to yourself – makes it almost impossible. And so I would become just about anybody else – Mr. Oud, Father Time, the Godfather, the Exhibitionist, the Introvert – anybody to not have to be myself. That made for the perfect conditions for a disaster, and disasters came more often than I’d like to admit. Once I started therapy and meditation, it was time to stop being anyone other than myself, and all the faults and failures that comprised the person I’d been concealing had to be acknowledged and confronted. It turned out they weren’t as bad as I thought they were – and that I wasn’t as bad as I thought I’d been. It was an effort in forgiveness, and acceptance, and it came just in time for what will hopefully be the second half of my journey here.
I was Cleopatra, I was taller than the rafters
But that’s all in the past love, gone with the wind
Now a nurse in white shoes leads me back to my guestroom
It’s a bed and a bathroom
And a place for the end
I won’t be late for this, late for that, late for the love of my life
And when I die alone, when I die alone, die I’ll be on time, ah
