"Closer To Fine" by The Indigo Girls, 1989
Why not start off the first songblog of the year with a song about life? I know this song seems like it has a lot of words, but that's one of the things I like about it- it's a little complicated, which I think is the point.
This is a song a grew up on. My dad would play it at coffeehouses with friends, and when I was learning to play guitar, it was one that was on my mind. It's still one of my favorite songs to play.
In a way this song may have been ahead of its time, but in other ways it's timeless. In today's society, we put so much stress on the black and white as if everything should be black and white; meanwhile we debate the grey areas to death.
Sometimes, we just take things too seriously.
We all do it - I do it all the time. I make myself miserable over things big and small because I so easily forget that all these things are just the way life goes, and that really, life has a way of working itself out in the end.
We do all these things the world says we should do, buy all these things we think we need when we don't, let the judgment of other people mess with our heads and make us question ourselves.
The whole point of this song is that we don't need any of that. You don't need to go to the ends of the earth to find yourself or the meaning of life, or to make a difference, or even to conform to the flow of society.
You don't need to be what the world says you should be in order to "fit in." If you ask me, it's all that trying to blend in that makes you invisible - which is ironic. We want to stand out and be like everyone else, but when you're just like everyone else, you don't stand out.
The less you try to define who you are, the more you'll feel like and be yourself.
Don't be so hard on yourself. Don't take it all so seriously.
It's only life, after all.
Lyrics:
I'm tryin' to tell you something 'bout my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
And the best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously
It's only life after all, yeah
Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
And lightness has a call that's hard to hear
I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety 'til I sank it
I'm crawling on your shore
I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine, yeah
Closer I am to fine, yeah
I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry, or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind
Got my paper and I was free
I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine, yeah
Closer I am to fine, yeah
I stopped by the bar at three a.m.
To seek solace in a bottle, or possibly a friend
I woke up with a headache like my head against a board
Twice as cloudy as I'd been the night before
And I went in seeking clarity
I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
We go to the doctor, we go to the mountains
We look to the children, we drink from the fountain
Yeah we go to the Bible, we go through the workout
We read up on revival, and we stand up for the lookout
There's more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine, yeah