A reflection on a song, but more of a motif of how I feel about many songs that once inspired me to something beyond myself, a punk scene.
Gotta Gettaway
Song by Stiff Little Fingers
Gotta gotta gettaway, gotta gotta gettaway
You know there ain’t no street like home
To make you feel so all alone
Plenty of folk to tell you what to do
But they don’t speak the same language as you
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They wanna have me here
Have me and hold me near
Hold me down fasten and tie
But the cars are all flashing me
Bright lights are passing me
I feel life passing me by
The fuss is buzzing in my head
My father argued and my mother begged
It’s not their words ain’t tugging at me
But gotta stretch them break them get myself free
()
Gotta gotta gettaway, gotta gotta gettaway
I’m leaving home
Funny Stiff Little Fingers played in Los Angeles. In the past I would have done about anything to be there. As a long-time fan who loves their songs.
Yet today out in my lovely garden filled with beautiful tubular purple blossoms, Dionysian Hollyhocks, Excited Jasmine and more, I realized the lyrics don’t appeal to my nature anymore.
I no longer need to “get myself Free.”
“But the cars are all flashing me
Bright lights are passing me
I feel life passing me by,” are not my concern anymore.
“You know there ain’t no street like home
To make you feel so all alone.”
This is in direct opposition to how I feel now.
Because now ‘my street and my home’ is the place where I do not feel alone.
Because being alone or by myself is where I find myself… happy.
I reflect, create, and have made a home that is loving and where I am loved.
This rebellious song of my youth does not hold up for me now.
So, I still love the bands, my youthful rebellion but I am not the young punk anymore. Oh, ya that little punk chick comes out to claim her identity now and then. What a bitch.
Yet a lot of what I hated then I have learned to love now.
Because my home speaks the same language as I do!
I guess I have struggled with this for some time. This time of the year when all the festivals crescendo all over the place… sure once in awhile I will go out… but I now I feel so alone there. The punk scene is not a place to find friends, myself, or wholeness anymore.
For me there is no place like my home.
I love my home.
It is my bliss.
Still looking for that. ✌️