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THE SOUND IN YOUR MIND By Will Kern
I woke up this morning and something was wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on it. This song was playing in my head when I opened my eyes, the Chi-Lites, “Have You Seen Her.” Why oh why, did she have to leave and go away? Weird. I have this weird habit; song lyrics that sum up life situations will play in my head subconsciously, as if my brain is trying to tell me something, interpreting information for me and doing it with snippets of words to songs both popular and obscure. And I’m not sure that it’s my brain. I think it’s my guardian angel, and she likes to communicate in music. This is what I’m talking about: I used to drive around Los Angeles and look out at the landscape, browned by the sun’s trampling feet and the gulch of rain clouds, and I’d look out at the splashy coloured billboards mixed in with the dead vegetation and the asphalt and the buildings bleached-white, and the strains of Pat Benatar singing we live in a painted desert would go through my head. Or whenever I got stuck in traffic I would hear Talking Heads: Home is where I want to be, pick me up and turn me round. I hear Talking Heads a lot. I think that’s a band my guardian angel prefers. Don’t ask me why she’s stuck in the 80s. Let’s say I get in an argument with my brother Wes. I have the feeling we are watched over by Eris, the Greek goddess of discord, and she made us brothers as some sort of lab experiment. We fight, and I’ll hear Talking Heads “Once In A Lifetime,” specifically the part that goes same as it ever was, same as it ever was because that’s what fighting with Wes is, it’s something that just goes on and on and on, and will through all eternity. He’s still mad at me because, when we were just barely out of kindergarten, I let one of the nuns from our Episcopal school wash her glass eye in his favourite cup. If he could have murdered me, he would have, but that’s another story. My guardian angel was on her yearly two-week vacation when I met my ex-wife. By the time she got back from the Bahamas it was too late, I was in love and was ignoring my head’s radio that kept playing “Heartaches by the Number.” So I wake up this morning with the Chi-Lites in my head, Have You Seen Her. And I know something is up but I don’t know what it is. Have you seen her? Tell me, have you seen her? I don’t know if you remember the song, it came out in 1971, but it’s a great soul number about this guy who’s asking his friends if they’ve seen his girlfriend, because she left him about a month ago and he misses the hell out of her. And he hears her voice on the radio and he sees her face when he’s watching a movie. So why is that striking a cord with me? I go to the HMV on Orchard Road to see if I can get a copy of the song. I really don’t think I am going to find one; it’s pretty obscure, but I find it in a box set called The Seventies Generation. Two CDs for $10, so you know this is a real hot buy. Included in this aural feast are other greats like “Ride Captain Ride” and “One Toke Over the Line, Sweet Jesus.” You probably won’t believe this, but HMV sells more The Seventies Generation CDs than they do Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears combined. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. So I take my CD home and put it on, and as the song plays I start to figure it out. I woke up with “Have You Seen Her” because I was thinking about my ex-wife. But why would I be doing that? We didn’t have a bad marriage but we had a terrible break up. My ex was cold as a hitman once she made up her mind to get out of it. It was actually pretty amazing. I was suddenly married to Le Femme Nikita. The marriage lasted for 2 ½ years. She divorced me because she thought I was too boring. People have a hard time believing that because it’s such a stupid reason, and they eye me suspiciously like I’m this big liar until I mention she was an actor. Then I get nods of understanding because everybody knows actors are crazy. True enough, but people who marry actors are crazy too. And no, my ex is nobody you’ve ever heard of. She was a stage actress in Chicago. She sells computer software and lives in Arizona now. So why the song “Have You Seen Her”? I don’t miss my ex. I worked all this out in therapy. I’ve been divorced longer than when we were married. Believe me, I’m not in denial. There is no reason for this to be coming up. I don’t love her anymore. I haven’t spoken to her in three years. Why, then? I’m walking around my flat, listening to the damn Chi-Lites, and I’m talking to myself and I’m trying to figure this out, and I look at the calendar and I realize that tomorrow would have been our anniversary. I had no idea. I haven’t thought about it. So I’m getting the Chi-Lites because, why? Because I have this strange clock inside me that tells me instinctually when it’s time to mourn? How could that possibly be true? Is this true for everyone? Now I’m standing on the precipice of what looks to be a very long, depressing day when out of the blue, a line floats up—Talking Heads, compliments of an angel, or possibly something remembered: The sound inside your mind is playing all the time, playing with a heart of steel.
End
Will Kern is a Chicago
playwright and freelance writer currently living next to Grauman's Chinese
Theatre in Hollywood . His website is
www.willkern.com.
The Juke Jar Canopic Publishing
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