Melancholy and redemption: every summer ends too soon. They all begin like this:
You and your baby on a Saturday night
You know all my dreams come true
When I’m walking down the street with you
You know she thrills me with all her charms
When I’m wrapped up in my baby’s arms
My little girl gives me everything
I know that some day she’ll wear my ring
So don’t bother me man I ain’t got no time
I’m on my way to see that girl of mine
`Cause nothing matters in this whole wide world
When you’re in love with a Jersey girl.
And they all end like this:
Winter rain, now tell me why, Summers fade, and roses die.
The answer came; the wind and rain.
Golden hills, now veiled in grey, Summer leaves have blown away
Now what remains? The wind and rain.
And like a desert spring, my lover comes and spreads her wings, Knowing,
Like a song that’s born to soar the sky, Flowing,
Flowing ’til the waters all are dry, Growing, the loving in her eyes.
Circle songs and sands of time, and seasons will end in tumbled rhyme,
and little change, the wind and rain.
And like a desert spring, my lover comes and spreads her wings,
Knowing, Like a song that’s born to soar the sky,
Flowing, Flowing ’til the rivers all are dry, Growing, the loving in her eyes.
Winter grey and falling rain, we’ll see summer come again,
Darkness falls and seasons change (gonna happen every time).
Same old friends the wind and rain, Summers fade and roses die,
You’ll see summer come again, Like a song that’s born to soar the sky.
My moods are like the seasons. And when I feel like all the roses have died and hope has faded, I know that I’ll see summer soon again. Perhaps Mick Jagger put it best when he sang about hitting bottom:
And your late night friends leave you in the cold gray dawn.
Just seemed too many flies on you, I just can’t brush them off.
Angels beating all their wings in time,
With smiles on their faces and a gleam right in their eyes.
Whoa, thought I heard one sigh for you,
Come on up, come on up, now, come on up now.
Come on up now, indeed. But there is a defiance at the bottom that is life affirming:
Making bets on Kentucky Derby Day
Ah, I’ll be in my basement room with a needle and a spoon
And another girl can take my pain away
or maybe you prefer the quiet dignity of the Boss’s despair:
Other folks get it anyway anyhow
I lost my money and I lost my wife
Them things don’t seem to matter much to me now
Tonight I’ll be on that hill `cause I can’t stop
I’ll be on that hill with everything I got
Lives on the line where dreams are found and lost
I’ll be there on time and I’ll pay the cost
For wanting things that can only be found
In the darkness on the edge of town
Ah, yes. The sound of summer in Jersey, where the shore winds whip the suburbs:
Trying in vain to breathe the fire we was born in
Catching rides to the outskirts tying faith between our teeth
Sleeping in that old abandoned beach house getting wasted in the heat
And hiding on the backstreets, hiding on the backstreets
With a love so hard and filled with defeat
Running for our lives at night on them backstreets
Sometime in August, I always hear the siren call of The Stone Pony:
And study your pain
Make crosses from your lovers
Throw roses in the rain
Waste your summer praying in vain
For a savior to rise from these streets
Well now I’m no hero
That’s understood
All the redemption I can offer, girl
Is beneath this dirty hood
With a chance to make it good somehow
Hey what else can we do now
Except roll down the window
And let the wind blow back your hair
Well the night’s busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere
We got one last chance to make it real
To trade in these wings on some wheels
Climb in back
Heaven’s waiting on down the tracks
And no matter how black things look, remember:
when the blind man
takes your hand
says: don’t you see?
got to make it somehow
on the dreams you still believe
