Dadgad & Zimmerman

I must be getting old,
But this doesn’t feel so much fun anymore.
Lis’ning to a pub band this weekend,
And suddenly the music’s not my friend.
The racket left me cold –
It wasn’t they were bad, as such, for sure…
But the PA was too loud – now there’s a phrase
That I never thought I’d utter all my days…!
They looked so middle-aged,
And so much less rock-&-roll as hokey-cokey.
So bald and fat and wheezy, just like me,
As they played their wall-of-sludge cacophony.
For all the singer raged,
His voice was lost within the karaoke –
I hate to say, but cranked up to eleven,
How they felt so out-of-place in rural Devon.
It’s me, though, truth be told –
My hearing just can’t tease their notes apart.
Though what has left me breathless ain’t the loud,
But the unrelenting crushing of the crowd.
I must be getting old,
If I’m waiting for the interval to start…
So sad and sobering a Sunday a outing
Now…where are all those clouds that need a shouting…?

        I Need Some Air

At first, I was dumbfounded by the rush,
And squeezed within the crush,
And now I think I’ve danced myself to hush –
My chords aren’t made of steel.

I just don’t have the breath to tell you,
Panting, how I feel –
I just ain’t got the means to yell,
Or roar, or even squeal.

I just don’t have the the vocal chops,
Or the power in my burning lung.
I can’t go shrieking from the rooftops
Like I did when I was young.

I cannot thrust my diaphragm,
To serve as my pneumatic ram.
I’m far too dizzy, too deflated,
Far too hyperventilated –
Strung-out, wrung-out,
Lost my shout,
And my words have got no clout upon my tongue.

I haven’t got the oxygen
To sing the chorus yet agen,
I guess it’s time to shut up when
My whistle just ain’t whistling.

But let me mumble, let me rasp,
In one more whispered, breathy gasp,
Before the words slip from my grasp:
Thank you all for lis’ning.