Struggles Of The Psyche

[Michael]

A few years ago, Doreen Peri – ya’ll know Doreen Peri, right? If you don’t know Doreen Peri, ya’ll got some knowin’ you gotta start doin’ – well, a few years ago, Doreen Peri pointed me in the direction of a poem written at another message board by a British gent named Alan Hodgson. She said that the poem was dying to be a song and, as I have an aversion to anything dying, I quickly put a melody to it. It’s entitled “The Streets Of Eden”. I put it on one of my less than gold record albums and, voila. I guess that’s it for that; “voila”.

I’ve recently been asking people with whom I’ve co-written songs to help me with a song about gun control. This was following the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school in my home state of Connecticut. However, like me, I think some of the American people who I asked just feel/felt too close to it. How could we pay tribute to those innocent victims? It was difficult.

I asked Alan for help once and he said, “I don’t know. We don’t have that problem over here.”

So, I let some time go by, but no one, including yours truly, could come up with what we thought would be good lyrics. Consequently, I got a hold of Alan again and told him that I’d already wrote some lyrics. I asked him if he could just expand on what I’d written.

He researched the event and, within 24 hours, the rest of the song was written.

Of course (por supuesto for you Arcadia), Alan wrote all of the lyrics to “Streets Of Eden”. However, in the song that he and I just completed, the lyric writing was split, although not fairly. I wrote one verse and about ten other lines, maybe even less.

I can see I can make some enemies because I wrote the last verse. It probably shows more sympathy for the shooter, Adam Lanza, than most Americans would like to see. So, I don’t want Alan to take heat for that verse. We call the song “Struggles Of The Psyche” and a click on the title will get you the music for the following lyrics.

Struggles Of The Psyche

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Adam was the last man but he didn’t have no Eve;
didn’t eat no apple from no tree, so I believe.
Dressed himself in black and green on that December day;
took his mother’s Bushmaster and blew her clean away.

Took a ride to Sandy Hook where he once went to school.
Adam thought he’d show ‘em now that he was no one’s fool.
Blasting through the plate glass door, Adam shook his fist;
put away the principal and school psychologist.

Struggles of the psyche, well what you gonna do?
Stay out of his way my friend, or he may shoot you too.

Strode into a classroom where the teacher tried to hide
with all her first grade students in a bathroom at the side.
Adam calmly shot them in the back or in the head.
Just one girl survived by lying still and playing dead.

Went into the class next door and killed all that he could;
bullets whining off the walls and screams and fear and blood.
Adam Lanza was a very very angry man;
teachers, kids or anyone, just killing all he can.

Struggles of the psyche, well what you gonna do?
Stay out of his way my friend, or he may shoot you too.

State Police have got the place surrounded now they say.
Helicopter hovers and the sky is looking grey.
Adam knows his time has come, he looks up at the clock,
puts a bullet through his brain from a ten millimeter Glock.

So why then did it happen? Ain’t nobody who can tell.
There’s twenty six dead innocents, the reason’s dead as well.
Condolences and sympathies, a minute’s silence called,
but who is it you turn to when your back’s against the wall?

Struggles of the psyche, well what you gonna do?
Stay out of his way my friend, or he may shoot you too.

The President says he will use the power his office holds,
the people sign petitions to debate on gun control.
The NRA suggests that armed guards stand at every school.
Police they can’t be everywhere, that plan is just plain cruel.

Democrats, Republicans, should hang their heads in shame.
Plenty fine words spoken but the song remains the same.
Manchin-Toomey Background Checks; that bill’s drowned in the brook!
Ask the folks who live with daily pain at Sandy Hook.

Struggles of the psyche, well what you gonna do?
Stay out of his way my friend, or he may shoot you too.

This isn’t the first time and it will not be the last.
Too many people carry hate to the present from the past.
It only makes sense that we want to see the shooter dead,
but we need to take one alive to learn what’s in their heads.

Struggles of the psyche, well what you gonna do?
Stay out of their way my friend, or they may shoot you too.

Struggles of the psyche, it happens every day;
people crying out for help but we just look away.

CKA
Michael

“Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them.” - Robertson Davies

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[Arcadia]

great lyrics & great title ... "struggles of the psique" ... it´s imposible to not identificate with it, damn if we don´t struggle ...!! (too much at times bordering the no necessary or healthy even tough we don´t jump to the streets or the schools shooting people ...). Gracias for sharing it, both of you!!!!!!!