As an ambitious teenager—head full of music, shame of the voice—I dreamed of one day becoming like Lennon and McCartney and other greats, an acclaimed (okay, then just a published) songwriter.
Alas, it wasn’t to be. For this that follows (found last week when disposing of old papers) is the only song I’ve ever written. And as you can see, it’s not yet complete.
[solo voice, melodic, rising]
Why should I . . .
[same voice, but deeper, rumbling and falling]
Be afraid, be afraid
[solo voice, melodic, rising]
Why should I . . .
[same voice, but deeper, rumbling and falling]
Be afraid, be afraid
[Then thrash, heavy guitar and drums]
When the dib-dib-dib and the dob-dob-dob
And the something and something and some thing gore
And some thing and some thing and some thing more
Something some thing something some thing
[solo voice, melodic, rising]
Why should I . . .
[same voice, but deeper, rumbling and falling]
Be afraid, be afraid
[solo voice, melodic, rising]
Why should I . . .
[same voice, but deeper, rumbling and falling]
Be afraid, be afraid
What’d yer reckon? If I can find me those ‘something’ words, have I a hit?
crispina kemp 
My something could be spiders, but not sure arachnophobes like to sing about it. Or not?
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You know, I have my head deep into finishing that ‘assignment’ for BB to fix for you that I clean forgot I had this scheduled. Glad you like. And I am discovering that to immerse oneself in one’s object of fear is a wonderful remedy. (Though BB has put in a complaint of how many of my stories feature snakes!) You could try it with spiders?
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Well when I was a little kid I collected spiders in jars. This was in Hawaii and the spiders were under the elevated houses. Years later I almost walked into the web of a poisonous spider, and the spider was home. Triggered a subsequent cascade of scary dreams and spider avoidance thereafter. My fav scary spider dream is posted here somewhere. But I believe that exposure in certain ways can control phobia. So writing is one. Even Indiana Jones was creeped out by crawly things.
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I’m not sure I was ever terrifically friendly with snakes. But the real full-blown hebbies only came after my ‘close encounter’ with a late basking adder about to strike (like it hissed as my foot hovered above it). Oddly, or not, that was in Wiltshire where I was researching the several Asaric tales featured on CP. I’ve since encountered the beasts around the Norfolk Broads. But everyone else says, “Oh you’re so lucky, they’re so rare; we never see them.” To which I say, try hiking early and late season.
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SSSSNAAAAKESSSS!!!
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Well I happen to think it a sensible fear. Though if I knew any snake-songs I’d sing them.
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Slither, slither!
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I have worked through my phobia. I now draw snakes–loads of them (see graphic for FF episode ‘Multi-Headed to be posted 22nd April). Still don’t want to stand on one though. But then, I doubt anyone does. I no longer dream of them.
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Hi Judy, didn’t notice the comment was yours. I thought it Brian doing a wind-up. 🙂
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And Good Morning to you
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Ahhhhh! I used to have nightmares about snakes, whole fields of them surrounding me. Don’t know if this was repressed homosexual feelings or a repressed hunger for spaghetti.
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Oddly (or not) until that day when I nearly stood on one my snake-dreams were definitely erotic. Since then, though the snakes haven’t been threatening as such, they have been ‘amassed’. As you say, whole fields of them. Then as those dreams became less frequent they were replaced by the comic. In the middle of a perfectly ordinary non-snake type dream, along would come a snake in cartoon form. In the end I got so fed up with it that I told them to buzz off. (probably not so politely). Now . . . the last snake dream was earlier this year when I found myself grabbing one behind it’s head and picking it up. I’m not quite sure why I did that, but I consider it a triumph over the phobia.
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Well, I’ve had the same on spiders. Crawling through fields of tall yellow grass with black spiders on webs attached to the grass at the tips right above my back!! Shudder……ouu
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Oh, that’s ghastly, even for someone without the phobia.
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Ever see the Hitcock movie “Rope”? There’s a scene near the beginning of it when people come to the party, and an elderly woman is trying to remember some wonderful play she saw. She’s vague, and James Stewart’s character makes fun of her by echoing her use of the “something something.”
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Make that “Hitchcock.” Else people are going to wonder about me.
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Well at least you managed to spell ‘Rope’ without use of an ‘a’. 🙂
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No, I’ve not seen that. But that echoes my grandmother. She’d be telling a story (we assumed from her life) but then she’d run out of memory and conclude with: “And so and so.”
That “So and so” became the name of Eblan Soansho in the Asaric Tales (she stole the grain from the Eskin)
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That –we assumed from her life….comment reminds me of an interesting documentary I saw not long ago. It showed how memories are made and how false memories can actually be established…new synapse connections and everything. Sometimes I wonder myself if certain memories I have are actually mine or if they are situations reinforced so many times that they have become mine.
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Odd you should say that. I have recently been reading about such states. Though this isn’t a new interest with me, the book focused on the origin of beliefs . . . which thus included false memories.
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I should find out the name of the program I saw because it explained the science of how memories are constructed very well. I think of course it has its sci-fi element in that if a scientist can create a memory that the person then believes happened to them, then why not control that person’s entire perception of their own history. On the nice side, could we create a positive happy memory to replace or counter someone’s terribly destructive real life memory of something bad?
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I’m sure that’s possible. That nasty thing of it is that certain counsellors have been known to inadvertently or otherwise, slip nasty memories into their patient’s head. It’s been suggested that this is the origin of reports of alien abductions, child abuse and satanic rituals. Certainly the witches of old were given false memories by the Inquisition. When you start looking into it, it’s horrendous.
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It is rather amazing how suggestible the human mind really is and that there is scientific data to show how memories can be created and new synapse connections are made accordingly. It is shameful when professionals abuse this in susceptible individuals. I can’t imagine not being able to tell the line between real and made up but I know that it is possible.
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So we might think, but experiments have shown otherwise. And not in what we’d consider vulnerable or susceptible people, but everyday folk in the street. Horrifying, isn’t it, the potential for abuse. Yet this susceptibility also forms the basis of the Asaric ‘coercion’ that I make use of in the Asaric Tales.
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Well it does make for good story telling. Some of my favourite Sci-Fi stories have mind manipulation and at the end of the tale the reader is not always clear on which world/events were real and which inputted.
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