Often, the best songs make for the saddest memories…

Driving around downtown, Blaire plays something new for me from on her car stereo.

A few seconds into the song, she mentions an ex-boyfriend of hers; a 20-something graffiti kid who spent his time tagging walls and riding the roofs of trains along with his best, but a little less famous, friend Paul.

Blaire vaguely mentions something about loose grips and tight corners; the details are sketchy, but the facts are clear as white chalk and x-rays. Paul was killed, while graffiti kid Josh fell off a train and landed in a wheel chair.

“A few months later, we were all at this party in some Gas Town loft, all hopped up on various narcotic nuances and nuisances.” Blaire says, in that way only she can get away with.

“It must have been like 7 in the morning when it happened. The sun was coming up bright and the few people left behind were coming down fast."

She turns up the volume, “And then, this came on,” she says starting the song again.

"As the song played, I watched Josh wheel himself onto the empty dance floor with half a bottle of Jack tucked firmly between his limp legs. Then, he began spinning his wheelchair around in circles with his head down and his eyes closed."

She takes a sharp turn, and scratches her nose violently with both hands, letting go of the wheel for a few seconds while I press the imaginary brake on the passenger side with my right foot.

"When the chorus hit he raised his head, pounding one fist in the air as he sang along and spun around. He looked like a communist rag doll,” she says.

We don’t speak the rest of the way to the record store; we listen to Goodbye Horses on repeat instead.

As life would have it, I’m halfway across the world,
And doubt I’ll ever see Blaire again,
But whenever I play this song, I can’t help but think of
This 20 something graffiti kid whom I never met, pounding his fist in the air
while spinning circles in his wheelchair
at 7 in the morning in some trashed but pretty loft in Gas Town.

It never fails to remind me
Of why I listen to music in the first place,
And why often
the best songs
make for the saddest memories…

So here is the very rare and mysterious Goodbye Horses. A song that made its way onto Silence of the Lambs. The song that played as Buffalo Bill put on his girly-skin suit and danced footloose and penis-free in his living room, and who knows, maybe he even pounded his fist in the air.

It’s fucked up… and that
my friends
is why it’s beautiful.

Q Lazarus – Goodbye Horses [MP3]

A few more songs for sinners

Cocorosie - Beautiful Boys [MP3]
Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy Jr. [MP3]
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Devil’s waiting [MP3]
Radiohead – I Am A Wicked Child [MP3]

Wikipedia: Q Lazzarus
Wikipedia: Who is John Wayne Gacy?