With Dapper-Dipped Ink

Hey.

Do you remember that song we heard?

It was a pretty long time ago…

But it was soft, and sweet and powerful
And if you turned it up loud enough, in your best friend’s presence
You could feel the lyrics twist around your essence
Hug it tight until your breath became short
And we drank the sonnet deep

We drank, and drank and drank until we could drink no more
And when the song was over, we‘d sing it then ourselves

And sing it in our sleep

Over

And over

And over

Until the whole neighborhood heard
Until our throats were desert dry with wear
Until we were starting to forget some of the words
Until our voices became so tired, the words were but a whisper in the air?

Even then we were singing

Because it was a beautiful song

It sang of love and wonder and fury and hate
It sang sadness and justice and demands for the truth
It sang of angels and demons and souls that danced ‘t’ward Hellgates
It screamed a melody unhampered and sung by our youth
It sang lilies and goblins and manticore dreams
It sang desperate streets and moonlight dances
It sang bitterly of lust ad deception with rock n’ roll screams
And it sang of bloodlust in one’s soul and unjustified romances

It was a song
A special song
And one that everyone knew

I think my brother knew it
And your cousins knew it
Our teacher knew it
And the shopkeeper could sing it with ease
And the kid down the street, Jimmy knew it in seventeen languages
(Including Finnish and Japanese!)

It was a dancing, twisting melody
That could have been sung for ages,
That throbbing, potent rhapsody,
It must have been written by sages
Yes, it really was one hell of a song
They don’t write ‘em like that anymore

Sure, we have some imitations
Thrown out by syndication
But they feel flat and trite and dull
And nothing like that song of yore
‘Cause they decided that those kind of songs
Are the sort that nobody likes, are the sort that are vile
They said, “We know what’s best for you, we know what doesn’t belong”
So they opened the radios, they threw out the dial

And stuffed them all full with tripe
But I still remember that old melody
The one we all knew by heart
The song that breathed pure ecstasy
Even if it never climbed to the charts

It was simple
It was loud
It was glorious and honey sweet
It screamed with guitars and drums and banjos

A song surely written in dapper dipped ink

But one thing still eludes me…
How did it go?
Do you remember?
How did it go?!