Listening to Somewhere Down the Crazy River by Robbie Robertson and thinking about sultry nights under heavy moons when you can’t sleep so you walk the streets of the city. You’re not looking for trouble, but you’re open to trouble finding you. The night is to explore and life is waiting to be discovered.
Sometimes you are too much energy mixed with alcohol, no ice, and the night ends with harsh words with boys who want to be men but are untested. They puff out their chests and their legs go stiff, the easier for the breaking. They don’t really want to fight. That’s why they lose.
Sometimes it’s a slow dance on a dirty dance floor. Her: big hair, red, red lipstick, high heels and nothing to say. You: leather jacket, big, sincere smile and a false name.
These are the nights before the path is truly chosen. If you’re lucky, you don’t fall into choosing. You stay upright and conscious and live forever.
If you stay righteous, you walk away from mortality and refuse to get mired in the deep mud. In youth, you have to move like water because fire burns. Mortals get caught by branches and twigs along the narrow path and lose their way into Ordinary. They wind up trapped in canyons that echo the same thoughts off bone walls. They see, hear, taste, speak and live and die nothing new.
The gravel in Robbie Robertson’s voice knows the rough road. His music rises above stupid fights with anonymous wannabes. Somewhere Down the Crazy River is a lazy current to a mystical place where you confront yourself and lose your bullshit in the soulful sound of yearning and needing and wanting more than Ordinary.
It’s a song about how to live, awake and aware. If you don’t want to be mortal, listen to Robbie, over and over, until you are lifted and carried on that slow river of heart and mind.
The one thing you gotta learn is not to be afraid of it. You like it now? You’ll love it later.