Apr 5, 06 03:07 PM
As I Try to Make the Rock.
Trying to rock by example.
Been sleeping poorly. I don't know if it's too much coffee at night, or obsession with work, but in any case, I've been running my own tunes over and over in my head as I toss and turn in the sack. Pruning a lyric here and there, occasionally having to interrupt the hypogogic state by scribbling a phrase down.
Daniel Johnston's guileless, lit-up style has been haunting me lately. I lay awake, thinking: How do I write a lyric like this?
CASPER THE FRIENDLY GHOST from Yip!/Jump Music.
He was smiling through his own personal hell
Dropped his last dime down a wishing well
But he was hoping too close
And then he fell
Now he’s Casper the friendly ghost
He was always polite to the people who’d tell him
That he was nothing but a lazy bum
But goodbye to them he had to go
Now he’s Casper the friendly ghost
No one never treated him nice
While he was alive
You can’t buy no respect
Like the librarian said
But everybody respects the dead
They love the friendly ghost
We’ll never forget
What he learned us
We were mean to him
But he never burnt us
And so the legend grew
And all the people that he knew
Go and spread the news of
Casper the friendly ghost
(He was "hoping too close"--?!)
