Mean me well
Last night's “dive bar bliss” had me remembering one of several songs I created in the 1990s inspired, in part, by events connected with that favorite bar of mine from the 1990s.
There was a dear young lady “regular” there who, well, we became what might be called “best platonic buds”.
We had many a good time at the bar, many a good time playing cribbage in her apartment – mostly listening to “The Cure” and “Depeche Mode”. I was sufficiently “inner circle” with her to be privy to her – what she called – “transformation”, i.e. going from a mousy-faced, boring-haired, plain and ordinary female to near supermodel in front of the mirror in her bathroom, as I sat smoking cigarettes on the toilet seat next to her.
She was a troubled soul (as was I – my inability to realize it at the time, notwithstanding), often somber while referring to disappointments and failures in her life (mostly with guys) in elusive ways – as though stating such precisely would be too painful.
So “Mean Me Well” is about her as though her telling it in a variety of ways, with an overriding theme (per the choruses) of deflecting my attempts to introduce alternative (mostly “Buddhist-ish”) thinking to her mental context. As the lyrics explicitly say: “I know you (i.e. me) really mean me (i.e. her) well(, but...)”.
(Chuckling now, remembering having lent her my copy of “The Buddhist Bible”, and her running down the stairs (always in non-trivial heels..) of the favorite bar for having forgotten to return it to me. (I was just about to pull away from the curb and go home.)
The lyrics “(she to me) save your truth for someone else, I'm busy with my life.. no more old philosophy, just go and love your wife...” (as I was married at the time) rather nail it, I think.
There's just so much I love about the song – despite it clearly being far from professional-grade audio quality (because I recorded it on a 4-track cassette tape deck, then transferred it to an 8-track digital device for subsequent re-mastering once I could afford such...). The whole mood of it seems so eerily, dreamily reflective.. so perfect a wistful vehicle slowly, meaningfully hearse-ing me down Reminiscence Lane....
Anyway, check out “Mean Me Well” here: https://src954.wixsite.com/inquiry