The Long, Long Chord

My mother always fears
I’d have ringing in my ears –
Of course, I never really thought I would.
But here I am, and hear I do –
She warned it me, I’m warning you,
A cautionary tale from the buzzing brotherhood:

The chainsaw guitars
With their scattershot strobes,
The piercing vocals
With scouring probes,
The throbbing basses
Vibrating my lobes,
And the beat –
The beat that was pounding my whole,
That was pounding against all my thoughts and control,
And was pounding my drums and my skull and my soul.

My thousand belting solos on my air guitar
(A Fender),
And my crooning to my hairbrush
Till my larynx cried surrender,
While my head was busy banging –
So my hair could whip its splendour,
And the only way to do it, dude, was loud.

My mother never understood,
The self-same song is nowhere near as good
Until it’s cranked up to eleven,
Till they hear it up in Heaven,
And its words ain’t sung no more, its words are howled.

But no, I’m not deaf, I still hear fine,
I can still hear the subtle feedback whine
In the midst of the overdrive riot.
It’s just when all is chilled and quiet,
There comes a gentle radio static –
An F-sharp in my cranial attic.
My mother was right, I cannot deny it.

But it’s cool, it only serves
To call to mind the legend’ry crowd
That I still pump in there, far too loud.
So let it hiss, cos that hiss is a part of me –
And who needs a shell to hear the sea ?
It’s what I’ve got, so best just to surf it.
Cos you know what ?
On balance, it’s probably worth it.