Lyrics
They'd hooked you up
To a fentanyl drip[4]
To mitigate the pain a little bit
I flew in
From Pennsylvania
When I heard the hour was coming fast
And I docked in Santa Barbara
Tried to brace myself
But you can't brace yourself when the time comes
You just have to roll with the blast[5]
And I'm an eighteen-wheeler headed down the interstate
And my brakes are gonna give and I won't know till it's too late
Tires screaming when I lose control
Try not to hurt too many people when I roll
Find the Harbor Freeway[6]
And head south
Real tired
Head kind of light
I found Telegraph Road[7]
I'd only seen the name on envelopes
Found the parking lot
And turned right
I felt all the details
Carving out space in my head
Tropicannas[8] on the walkway
Neon red
Between the pain and the pills trying to hold it at bay
Stands a traveler going somewhere far away[9]
And I am an airplane tumbling wing over wing
Try to listen to my instruments, they don't say anything
People screaming when the engines quit
I hope we're all in crash position when we hit
And then came to your bedside
And as it turns out, I'm not ready
And as though you were speaking through a thick haze
You said hello to me
We all stood there around you
Happy to hear you speak
The last of something bright burning, still burning
Beyond the cancer and the chemotherapy
And you were a presence full of light upon this earth
And I am a witness to your life and to its worth
It's three days later when I get the call
And there's nobody around to break my fall[10]
Footnotes
1. His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. (KJV) ↩
2. The demo for Matthew 25:21 was released on The Life of the World in Flux. ↩
3. Yeah, that one is about my mother-in-law. Straight autobiographical song. It's about the time that I — oh man, it's hard to talk about. It's about the time that I called my wife from tour, and she had gone to be with her mom and she said, 'We're thinking it could come any minute.' I was on tour, and I couldn't not go say goodbye, so I canceled a show in Northampton, Massachusetts and flew home, drove in and stayed in that environment where someone is about to leave their body at a very young age. I was there for about 24 hours, and then I turned around and went back to tour and stepped from a cab onto stage. It was really disorienting in a really heavy, heavy way. So yeah. That's for her. (Pitchfork) ↩
4. Fentanyl is an opioid medication that can be used to control pain at the end of life. May be sung as "Demerol", the trade name for mepiridine. (2010-05-16, 2011-03-29) ↩
5. I (the curator of this website) am a physician and graduated medical school in 2020. I took care of a lot of grieving families during the pandemic, and this couplet was the basis for the only helpful answer I could give when people asked me why it still hurt when someone died an anticipated death. I am not particularly well-spoken or eloquent, and am eternally grateful to JD for giving me this one and thereby comforting a whole bunch of people who needed it. ↩
6. The Harbor Freeway is another name for State Route 110 between downtown Los Angeles and San Pedro Bay Harbor. (Credit: Annotated TMG) ↩
8. A road running from East Los Angeles to La Mirada in Los Angeles County. Many hospitals and other healthcare facilities exist in the area. (Credit: Annotated TMG) ↩
8. A lily of the genus Tropicanna popular as a landscaping plant in warm areas, notable for their vibrant leaf colors. ↩
9. Often people at the end of a long illness will become restless and have moments where they talk about travel: getting on a plane or train, worrying about their baggage, trying to leave their sickbed. This is a well-known sign that someone is going to die in the coming days. Given John's past work in a hospice, it stands to reason that this is related. ↩
10. Sung as "I wish you were still around to break my fall" on the demo. ↩