Something 4 The Weekend # 152

Hank Mohaski: Moist & Tender Favorites: "No Returns" [mp3]

I wrote and recorded this song exactly ten years ago today. How do I know this? Because despite the Psilocybin mushrooms I ingested that evening, which may very well have blurred my memory, it was my birthday. It's hard to forget one's birthday, even while under the influence of hallucinogens.

This song is called "No Returns". It's a play on the old playground saying "girl germs - no returns", but more to the point, it's meant to represent the forward movement of our lives, the idea that we cannot recapture the past. Thus, the sounds of kids playing, and underneath, the slow mechanical sounds of time forever moving forward.

On the surface, it may sound as if this song is nothing but 5 minutes of repetition, but if you listen closely, you will hear new instruments and new melodies continually being introduced to the song - the sounds of experiences constantly being acquired as we age. It may seem that we never really get anywhere in this life, but in reality, nothing ever quite stays the same.

So, here I am, ten years later, and at first glance it may seem that my life hasn't changed very much since then - I still live in the same house I did then, I still work at the same job, I still have the same two cats and many of the same friends - but in reality I've travelled in the past decade, I've made new friends and lost old friends. I've had alot of new experiences, I've shared my bed with new women, read new books, seen new movies, heard new music, written and recorded new songs. I've accumulated knowledge and forgotten other knowledge. Memories have slipped away, only to be replaced by others. In some respects, I'm still the same man I was in 2000, but in many other respects, that man is a stranger to me now. And so it goes...

Hotcha! Hank