Lyrics to the engine's "One Note Song"

It’s 10:30 on a Friday night. I’m smoking a Black and Mild and driving down one of the back-roads of Bumblefuck, Texas, my hometown. I don’t smoke very often. Damn cheap cigars, nothing like a solid Honduran. What can I say, they’re inexpensive, available, and I usually only smoke them when I really need to ease my nerves.
         I live in Dallas now where I’m a sophomore music major at a university that I won’t name here. I was (am, eventually) on my way to Chicago to attend a seminar from a world famous musician that I want to study with in grad school. I was only stopping in Bumblefuck to get a little something to eat and to see the family…….and to see her.
         She graduated tonight. Though we haven’t been on the best of terms lately, I had to go see her graduate. It’s a big night for her and, frankly, there were days when I didn’t think she’d make it this far.
         Her name is Bethany, and she’s the kind of girl that if you’re not in the market for dating her, you probably can’t stand her. Some people have a problem with that, I never did.
         For you to truly understand the relationship I have with her, let me just say that I have never been Casanova. I had one “official” girlfriend all through high school and that lasted a matter of days, weeks if you like low numbers. So to say I’m inexperienced at the art of “wooing’ is an understatement: I don’t know jack shit about trying to get with a girl.
         Oddly enough, when we first met, Bethany was attracted to me (a first, I think, and to the best of my knowledge, the last.) She doesn’t like the phrase “love at first sight,” but she did say it was probably the closest thing she’ll ever experience to it.
         When I left her graduation, I left her with a person that I used to call “friend.” The guy I left her with knows just how far back my relationship with her goes, the scumbag boyfriends that I tolerated in hopes of being a shoulder to cry on, the abuse we’ve both suffered at each other’s hands, and a person that knew that we had just had a major relationship breakthrough when he decided to interfere and set me back 8 months.
         Something else you have to understand about our relationship: She had been in several abusive relationships, and I was horny as hell and had never been in a relationship (nor was I very good at trying). What you have to understand about that particular combination of people is that we were both willing to take whatever the other one threw at us and not get offended or leave because all either of us wanted was a relationship that would work and (maybe) make us both happy.
         So now I’m driving around the boonies because I need this cigar, and I don’t want my mother to know I smoke. It’s stupid really, I only smoke when I have some already, it’s the only vice I picked up in a year of college, and my mother has been smoking for 30 years and shows no sign of stopping.
         My iPod is currently playing “Spitting Venom” by Modest Mouse. I’m kinda hoping that between the endless, black road in front of me, the tobacco hanging from my lips, and the freeform jam at the end of the song I can clear my head a little bit and try to gather my thoughts somewhat.
         My mind keeps going back to that parking where I waited for her by her car after graduation had ended: She hugged me tonight. She hugged me harder that she hugged me in a long time. And in front of the guy she calls “Boyfriend” this month. If he hadn’t been there I would have kissed her. I kissed her on the forehead anyway, but it would have been a way better kiss had he not been there.
         Actually, while I sat in the bleachers by myself during graduation (I got there too late to sit near any of my old friends,) I had actually worked up this pouring confession. It would have gone something like this: It had only been a year since I stood on that football field in a blue gown. On that night, as I said “Goodbye’s” and “I’ll miss you’s” to all of my friends, I kept looking over every shoulder to see if she would come down from the bleachers to see me (ironically enough, we had been on bad terms prior to that night too.) When she finally did materialize out of the crowd, I immediately went to her and wrapped my arms around her. She is significantly shorter than me, so she was almost completely shrouded in my gown. After a moment like that, I felt her start to shiver and push away from me. I then saw her quickly wipe her eye and just stand there smiling at me, not talking.
         She would later tell me that in that moment she decided there was “no one else she wanted to be with.”
         As I try to discreetly pass my house (because I still haven’t finished this damn cigar,) I think to myself “What happened?”
         “Spitting Venom” has been off for a few minutes and I decide that something else that’s that laid back before I’ll be ready to go back to my house. I start thumbing through the iPod: Radiohead, “Not now, maybe later;” The Smiths, “……not tonight;” Lagwagon, “Absolutely not. I’m upset, not ‘drive too fast and do something stupid’ upset” It hits me: Bob Marley, “No Woman, No Cry”
         Yes, I know it’s less about the opposite sex and mostly about the socio-economic state of Jamaica, but that doesn’t mean that the laid back feel of the song coupled with the legendary chorus doesn’t help let off a little steam.
         With Reggae coming from the speakers and a steady stream of wine-scented smoke coming from my cigar, I hit my blinker to turn back onto  the highway……