You can read the lyrics in the description on the song’s YouTube page. 

This video was the first of my #MudRoomSessions. Those are sessions that I record in my mud room, if you follow. I was hoping to do these more frequently than I’ve been doing them, which so far has been about one every 60 years. The next one I do, though, will double that frequency, and if you accomplish anything that consequential this week I’ll buy you a drink.*

* If you’re also one of the first two people to say hi to me at Yonder.

Forever is about the future. I don’t think about the future much. Have you ever read the novel or seen the movie Watership Down? It’s about a bunch of rabbits in England. Watership Down is a place, not the status of a boat. Stick with me here the story is told from the point of view of the rabbits. 

According to the book, rabbits hardly ever need to count higher than four, which happens to be how many claws rabbits have. So their numbering system goes like this:

1, 2, 3, 4, a lot.

That’s kind of how I think about time. There’s the past, there’s today, there’s the next week or so, and there’s The Future, which I’ve already mentioned I don’t think much about. The future is a vague, blurry place where there are things we can’t imagine like space colonies and free health care and that thing I’m supposed to do a week from Friday that I can’t remember what it is but it doesn’t matter because it’s not like it’s ever gonna BE a week from Friday right?

A couple years ago my son was looking for work and we were talking about it. He was 18 or 19. I think I asked him what he wanted to do long term. What kind of career?* He said he didn’t see much point in planning for a career or a long life since it looks like the planet’s going to incinerate before he’ll have a chance to see those plans through. 

Which is a hell of a thing to hear your kid say. And another hell of a thing is that while I hope he’s wrong about that, I couldn’t honestly tell him I thought he was wrong. 

So that’s the cheerful origin of this fun song! 

Because one of my racing, unspoken thoughts in that moment was “Well, at least you don’t have to worry about career planning.” And a couple years later, in an idle moment, that thought came back, in a slightly different form: We’re all going to die soon, but the silver lining is I’ve lost my fear of commitment. Hey-oh! 

And that’s what Forever is about. That’s the joke. 

The joke about how, you know, the planet’s going to incinerate. Gallows humor. I’m furious about the climate, about our failure as a society to deal with the problem, which is our failure to overthrow a system where a tiny sliver of insanely rich people getting ever richer is more important than making the planet sustainably livable for the other 8 billion of us and our descendants. 

But as long as this guillotine shortage goes on, gallows humor is what I got. 

* If there are any parenting scolds in the house: This wasn’t the first time I ever asked my kid what he wanted to do with his life, like I had no idea. I meant what are you thinking NOW. He was going through an age-appropriate period when the answer to that question might change daily. Still is. So am I.

Forever has six chords in it, which is roughly double my usual number. I’d like to say that’s a sly ironic joke, that this song is richer in chords than my other songs. It’s hoarding them, the way the plutocrats hoard wealth with no regard for the future of humankind! But it’s not. I just kept trying different chords and they kept working. I think that’s how Beethoven and that crowd did it too. 

Other stuff

So about mimes. I find the usual mime routine as annoying as most people do. You know, the trapped in a glass box thing. I feel like you used to see mime street performers more than you do now, and I’m happy about that. 

But also, I once saw Marcel Marceau perform, and it might have been the greatest thing I’ve ever seen on a stage. And I mean one time I saw Johnny Thunders sitting in with Wall of Voodoo at the Whisky. 

This photo of Johnny was taken at about the same time. When I saw him, he looked a thousand times more high than he looks here. 

He did this bit about a day in the park. I’m talking about Marcel Marceau again. Johnny Thunders didn’t do a bit about a day in the park. He did a bit where he kind of stood there in a daze with his guitar on and the Wall of Voodoo singer said “Hey Johnny none of these people even know who you are,” and the percussion guy stepped in front of Johnny at his mic, pointed back to him, and said “Come on people, this guy’s seen Malcolm McLaren’s dick!” At the time I could never keep Malcolm McLaren straight from Malcolm McDowell. I knew who they each were, I just could never remember which one was McLaren and which one was McDowell. I was about 17 so go easy on me.

A few years after that I was in a band called Oblivious, and we were playing a gig at my favorite club in San Francisco, which was called Chatterbox, named after a Johnny Thunders song. When we finished playing a couple people told us that Johnny had walked in while we were playing, had a drink, said we were pretty good, and left. None of these people had any reason to lie to us about this but I still didn’t believe them. That hasn’t stopped me over the years from saying that Johnny Thunders was a fan of my band Oblivious. 

As bad as this Johnny Thunders tangent is, it’s better than watching a mime. 

Except Marcel Marceau, who was the greatest. It was just him on a bare stage. And I swear, I could see things that weren’t there. In that park bit I could see a bench, a trash can, a baby stroller, a bunch of balloons. I could really see all that. You know when you’re watching a TV show and someone takes a drink from a cup of coffee and you can tell the cup is empty? Marceau was miming a dance and I could actually see the weight of his partner as he had his arms around them. And by them I mean a person who did not exist and wasn’t there. 

It was mind-blowing. My date for the evening, who I mentioned in the first newsletter so I won’t mention her again or she’ll start demanding appearance fees, hated it so much she stayed in the lobby after intermission. 

I’d like to think that if old Marcel had shown up at the Yonder open mic, they’d have made an exception for him. They'd let Johnny Thunders play a few songs too. Seems like a fun night*. 

* Subtle reference

Thanks for reading. 

Your friend,

The King Teen

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