“…with all the other pigs…”

Soundgarden Live at SXSW

I’ve been watching a beautifully filmed Soundgarden set from SXSW. “The Day I Tried To LIve,” was one of my favorite songs by this band who, along with R.E.M. and Faith No More, comprised the majority of my listening attention from high school through my college years. The lyrics couldn’t be a more accurate picture of the wake I left behind me and the skewed perspective I had at the time. It’s certainly interesting how 15-20 years of life experience and add perspective. There were times when I tried, mightily, to do the right thing, but, ended up recoiling violently due to many circumstances, but, most notably, my own self interest and the fact that I cut myself off from those who I needed most to hold on to. Stretching my own horizons – seeing how far I could push the night into the morning – seemed to be so much more important to me at the time. The consequences of that period left me broken and, eventually, aware of how helpless I was. There was no way that I was going to make it on my own. Indeed, “…I learned that I was a liar…”:

I woke the same as any other day
Except a voice was in my head
It said, “Seize the day, pull the trigger
Drop the blade and watch the rolling heads”
The day I tried to live
I stole a thousand beggar’s change and gave it to the rich
The day I tried to win
I dangled from the power lines and let the martyrs stretch
Singing, one more time around might do it
One more time around might make it
One more time around might do it
One more time around I might make it
The day I tried to live

Words you say never seem to live up to the ones inside your head
The lives we make never seem to ever get us anywhere but dead
The day I tried to live
I wallowed in the blood and mud with all the other pigs
Singing, one more time around might do it
One more time around might make it
One more time around might do it
One more time around I might make it
The day I tried to live, I tried

I woke the same as any other day you know why
I should have stayed in bed

The day I tried to win
I wallowed in the blood and mud with all the other pigs
And I learned that I was a liar (One more time around)
I learned that I was a liar (One more time around)
I learned that I was a liar (One more time around)
I learned that I was a liar (One more time around)
Singing, one more time around might do it
One more time around might make it
One more time around might do it
One more time around I might make it
The day I tried to live
Just like you, just like you
One more time around (One more time around)
One more time around (One more time around)

I thank God that, since then, I’ve found grace.