Story Behind The Song

Song won John Lennon Songwriting Contest, Spring 2012

Song Description

The poem has too many footnotes to list here. Philosophers work referenced, Heidegger, Arendt, Lacan, Sartre... I hold an MA from Boston College in Philosophy.

Lyrics

I saw a bug battle in the cracks of the street the bugs struggled

Their plastic screams and cellophane cursed were so much like yours and mine

A brave one called to my ear and he told me of his trials in the street crack theater

I grinned as if I cared; he smiles like he had the time

He said: In whose camp does your banner fly? & can I have you on my side?


He Loaded a pistol while and I replied:

I'm anti-pro, no shout catechist

So keep the pamphlets political activist, you'll take your cause for lack of a purpose[1] in life, a Pursuit of happiness, eudemonia: goodspiritedness, your living proof that ignorance aint bliss

Pray: Libara nos a malo! And Free Tibet! But you never prayed for the souls with affixed bayonets, so I wave like the man being shot from the cannon, bourn on the chunk of worm rock hurling through nothing, who only on the front of spirit can fight, storm the Bastille of desperate life and dance in the street every night till the day I die.

The bug replied


Know all know all in the dialog to win, two Grants are a Franklin one Lincoln just a fin? Posit value for a bug since your so well balanced. Gaining perspective from the outermost valance. You never Killed what you eat and confuse labor with Action but you think your two evolved to fight for my faction. Better get in the Frey my anti-anti teacher, before it sucks you along like every other fighting creature. I'm going back to the fight where I breath a little freer but let me give a final though like I'm Gerry Springer: If happiness in purpose you can call my purpose love. To survive I fight the battle and to me you're the bug.


Thunderstruck I sat on the curb. Realizing I could be a social surd. Than I saw my small confessor get killed in a raid, I would have stomped out his assassin if I wasn't so afraid,

Instead I rose to my feet and walked straight home, I locked my self in and wrote out this song

I think of the bug when I'm dancing in the street, Every time my neighbor troughs a sneaker at me, I feel his wrestles spirit longing to fight when I'm drinking and singing in the middle of the night. Than it hits me, the bug was right.

[1] if one has a why, they can endure almost any how" - Franle, Via Heidegger