I have recently been brought up on charges in the court of the birds for perjuring myself in song.  An indictment of insubstantial mist was filed against me, a cloud-based document of illegible precipitation in which I was accused of using my imagination to an excessive degree, and embellishing the facts of my existence with fantastic, impossible nonsense.  It is for the court of the birds I make this statement, and recuse myself of any wrongdoing.  While it is true I have abused the legalistic form of songwriting in the past, and have used it to not only pour out my heart and soul, but also to make myself happy, both of which are crimes against content of the worst, most despicable kind, I have since repented of the crime of writing things that resonate with me as an individual.  Writing for other people is the surest way to wean myself from the habit of writing things that resonate with me personally, which will enable me to bring objective value to a world of paradoxical, self-cancellating collectivists drunk on individual subjectivism.  While it's true that much of my material was written for the sole purpose of giving myself a laugh, a laugh which I selfishly felt no need to share with anyone, I now understand that writing legalistic garbage that conveys an important social, political, or religious message that is as bloodless and dogmatic as it is artless and unlistenable is the highest virtue to which an artist of law can attain.  Far higher than making oneself laugh with lines that have yet to be drained of the toxic, unpotable blood of idiosyncratic vision.  I would like to take this opportunity to thank the court for saving my life.

In my defense, I present "San Francisco Here I Come," which was notarized by Sparrows & Rain, LLP.

You know, the famous lawyers.

What sounds like an impressionist word-painting comprised of disjointed, impossible images is actually a tightly-collated, impenetrable file of hardcore artistical facts.  Nary a word of this ironclad legal document comprised of unflinching dogmatic realism is in the slightest way untrue.  Everything in the song is depicted as it literally happened.

Let me show you.

North Beach 1996

The song begins with a declaration of poverty, and the disdain with which the female antagonist holds the heroic artist of law who recorded the universal events described in the musical deposition known to the unwashed laity as "San Francisco Here I Come."  The female antagonist, who remains off-camera for the duration of the proceedings, has been notarized by neither sparrows nor rain, and may be an enemy of the benevolent, all-knowing "we," it will perhaps interest the court of birds to know.

Anyway, after the heroic lawyer of artistic anti-expression leaves the antagonist behind, he finds himself underneath a bridge, playing Mozart on a roasted pigeon with his teeth.  This image has nothing to do with the imagination of the accused, and does not infer a connection between Mozart and eating musical pigeons under the bridge like Jimi Hendrix, or any other forms of profligate degeneracy.  As we all unanimously voted last week, all our geniuses had to go live under the bridge, and it is therefore true that the only people who have ever heard of a peckerwood Nazi like Mozart are homeless outlaws who are forced to eat unregistered pigeons to survive, may the wisdom of unanimous, willful ignorance continue to shine like rays of gleaming urine from the glorious, piss-soaked sun on the faces of the council in perpetuity, forever.

The 2nd verse is admittedly problematic, because the heroic artist of law dreams of being adorned in clothing that is a product of exploitation and slave labor, and that he and "his girl" are flouncing through the dream while presuming to possess not only each other, but also non-regulation clothing that resembles precious gemstones.  This admittedly-unpardonable sin against the mandatory mediocrity that makes our society miserable, and therefore great, is however atoned for by the fact that our hero is sleeping in the bus station.  He awakens to discover a transit cop dancing with a mop, which isn't an image intended to elicit pathos and introspection in the listener, the court will certainly not need to be told.  Illicit relations and dancing with cleaning implements of every kind are acceptable behaviors in our society of aberrance, fetishism, and tolerant, self-hating neuroses.  It's also very hard to sleep in the bus station in San Francisco, due to all the wooden slats nailed to the benches at intervals that make it impossible to lay completely flat.

So it's okay.

Finally, we come to the last verse, which depicts a realistic scene of birds flying kites over a sea of molten Christmas lights.  If you've ever been to San Francisco, you know that they melt down their Christmas lights to make railroads and bread, and that birds have been observed by many artistic scientists flying kites above Golden Gate Park, among other locations that would have been called "idyllic" in former more degenerate and less virtuous times.  While it's true our hero is walking down the street in boots of pure, unregulated Capitalism, his footwear is just a legalistic metaphor for the bridge, which was named "The Golden Gate" as a way of enticing our subjects to hurl themselves from its heights into the golden gates of hell, heights which symbolize the dizzying emptiness and vacuity of individualism, and which are intended to intimidate our subjects into embracing the unnatural spiritual rot of the great, invalidating collective.  In the event they fail to partake of their daily rations of universal hope that denies their individual needs and therefore works for everyone, our subjects are "free" to hurl themselves through "The Golden Gate" to hell, a place reserved for people we don't like, even though we have all decided in our democratic, all-smothering wisdom that we don't believe in it.

Of course, at the end of the legalistic song our hero declares that the love between him and the heteronormative Capitalist antagonist became "stronger," which is also problematic on the surface, so....

Ah, the heck with it.  I can't pretend with you people anymore.  Obfuscation and the anti-art of using complicated words to say absolutely nothing is your specialty, not mine.  I speak from the hip.  I shoot from the gut.  If you don't like it, don't buy it.

If you do, feel free.

Thanks for listening.

San Francisco Here I Come

Coffee and a smoke
baby yeah I'm broke
she thinks that I'm a bum
San Francisco here I come

The wind is in my hair
you don't miss me,
I don't care
my heart is beating like a drum
San Francisco here I come

     And if ever I arrive,
     you can find me
     underneath a bridge
     playin' Mozart
     on a roasted pigeon
     with my teeth

My teeth are tightly clenched
lyin' on a wooden bench
another sleepless night in
the bus terminal again

I had a dream
I was all dressed up like a diamond ring
me and my girl
without a care in the world

     But when I opened my eyes
     I saw a ragged,
     dirty mop
     dancing with a retired
     transit cop

With my pen and paper in my pack
and the clothes on my back
a pair of golden boots on my feet
I step into the street
with golden boots
on my feet

The birds are flying kites
above a sea of molten Christmas lights
I open my flask
and take a shot of rum
San Francisco here I come

     And if I
     never make it back to you
     it doesn't mean
     our love wasn't true
     if anything,
     it grew

©2008 Nathan Payne