song lyrics for a saturday, part 4

Everything seemed to be going well for me in the spring of 1994. After a year and a half of pleading and begging, I finally got my driver's license at the age of 17 1/2. I was in one of my high school's choirs (the first and only time in my life I would be in a choir), and on a whim, tried out for and was given a small but significant role in that year's dinner theater production, entitled "Ricky Rock's Record Hour" (I was Ricky Rock). I was close to graduating, and both feared and looked forward to the new life I was about to start at BYU.



It was during the dinner theater rehearsals that I started dating my first girlfriend. Shortly after it ended, she dumped me, citing the old "I just want to be friends" reason. Despite the fact that it had only lasted one month, and the fact that we had never even kissed, I was devastated. For various reasons, we had kept our relationship a secret from friends and family, and committed to keeping it that way even after we broke up. Not having anyone to talk to or to share in what I was going through, I quickly became very depressed. I began to have a constant feeling of nausea, of uneasiness. That feeling made me lose my appetite, and in the month following the break-up, I lost 25 lbs. I lost weight so quickly that I began to have trouble staying awake. I slept in almost every class at school (it's amazing what teachers will let you get away with when your grades are good and you have the early-morning seminary excuse), would take naps when I got home from school, and would then go to bed between 6:30 and 8pm every night. I was also cold all the time, and began to wear jeans and long-sleeves all the time--a very noticeable departure from my ever-present shorts and t-shirts in the warm southern California weather. Needless to say, this was not an easy time in my life, and I didn't shake the depression and eating disorder problems that I developed until sometime later that year or early the following year.

The whole thing was silly, when I think about it. But, a 17 year-old kid isn't necessarily going to realize that his first girlfriend will likely not be his last. These are the kinds of things you learn when you're growing up. By the time I came home from Hong Kong in 1999, girl problems didn't really bother me any more. Ups and downs and breakups just became a part of life.

My favorite musical companion after that first horrible breakup was Faith No More's "Angel Dust", an eclectic hard rock album that was somewhat popular at the time. My favorite song from the album, "Smaller and Smaller", entranced me with its utilization of harmonic minor scales, odd time signatures, and themes of despair in the present and simultaneous hope for the future. I've listened to it again a couple times recently, and it's still a great album, almost 15 years later.



The lyrics to "Smaller and Smaller":

Drought makes the workers dream
Muscles and fields of green
Shovel the last few crumbs
Of generosity
Open heart, open mind, open mouth, open vein
Drain
Someday the rains will come
My blistered hands tell me
Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow
Bite
Cry
I'll keep coming back
smaller and smaller and smaller
squash me
smaller and smaller and smaller
under the charity
smaller and smaller and smaller
under the topsoil
smaller and smaller and smaller
under the fingernail
smaller and smaller and smaller
then small becomes all becomes all.......
Bite
Bite
Bite
Cry
It's not a mirage
trickling downward, trickling downward
It's not a mirage
Drain
Bite
Cry
smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.......