| Walked back to the hotel last night, tired as hell with my band
|
| Madrid was canceled, yeah
|
| Even with all those allegedly competent stage hands
|
| They couldn’t fix the calibration on the PA system
|
| And the snare drum was missing
|
| And an amplifier was blown
|
| And the feedback wouldn’t stop hissing
|
| They talked in Spanish, I gave them two chances to fix the thing
|
| But they scratched their heads, and among themselves
|
| They kept whispering and whispering
|
| I asked a band member who understands a little bit of Spanish, «What are they
|
| saying?»
|
| He shook his head and said, «Don't think this show is happening»
|
| Got into my hotel room and I called Caroline, back in the States
|
| She was cooking a turkey with her parents in LA, it was Thanksgiving Day
|
| Though I was tired, I spent some time blow drying my socks
|
| That I washed in the sink a few V-neck T-shirts and a pair of pants
|
| With some hotel hand soap, the wrapper said «Soap for Joyful Hands»
|
| I went and laid down, under the thin sheets of my Spanish bed
|
| Fell asleep and had a dream about the twin sisters
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| Whom outside the venue I met
|
| It would have been great to slay the crowd
|
| To thrown down on that stage
|
| But it could not be done with that old dusty outdated PA system
|
| Dialed in for performance art and children’s plays and stand-up comedians and
|
| magicians
|
| It was not dialed in for dynamic bands who play a few decibels above medium
|
| Before I went to sleep, I called all the guys in my band
|
| About the lobby call in the morning and the basic layout of tomorrow’s plans
|
| What time do we leave for Oporto? |
| When will the plane land?
|
| My socks were hanging out to dry on the doorknobs, the curtain rods,
|
| on the bedsides stands, even on the lamps
|
| Washed with Madrid tap-water and «Soap for Joyful Hands»
|
| Seat 9C, Iberia Air, al Oporto to Heathrow via Madrid
|
| Last night, we played in a town called Espinho outside of Oporto, Portugal
|
| Our hotel was on the beach and the air smelled so, so wonderfully tide pool-y
|
| I went for a walk along the rocks that went straight out into the ocean
|
| And the rocks started getting slippery
|
| When I got to the edge, I was about to take a photo with my disposable camera
|
| When a sneaker wave came out of nowhere and I got hammered
|
| I walked back to the hotel, drenched with ocean and tide pool in my mouth
|
| Getting drenched by that water out of nowhere, for me, that’s what’s life’s all
|
| about
|
| And I even love the routine stuff, the day-to-day-to-day-to-day-to-day
|
| I find poetry in the day-to-day
|
| I find it in the emptiest, loneliest, most boring, and uneventful days
|
| But it’s the curveballs that hit us out of nowhere that make us say
|
| «Fuck, thank god I’m alive today!
|
| Thank god I’m alive to taste the ocean today!
|
| Thank god I’m alive to smell the fish soup and boiled shrimp today!»
|
| That sneaker wave woke me up and made me realize what a gift I’ve been given in
|
| life
|
| I’ve got friends who didn’t get this far because they committed suicide
|
| I’ve got friends who didn’t get this far because they had heart attacks and
|
| fell off the couch and died
|
| I’ve got friends who didn’t get this far because of cancer, they died
|
| That sneaker wave woke me up and made me realize
|
| What a beautiful gift I’ve been given
|
| One day I’ll wake up in Stockholm snow
|
| And one day I’ll wake up to the sunshine in Portugal
|
| Came back to my still-wet clothes
|
| Washed with «Soap For Joyful Hands» and Spanish water
|
| And hung them to dry on the balcony of the hotel on shirt hangers
|
| I went to play the show in Espinho and we sang «I Love Portugal,
|
| I Love Portugal»
|
| I told them the story of the first time we played there in the 90's with the
|
| Red House Painters
|
| When we played Soul Coughing last minute at a festival
|
| And how we got whistled at and pelted by garbage thrown at us by the fans
|
| And how it made me smile like Satan, how I met two guys named Vasco and Miguel
|
| Who became my very good lifelong friends
|
| After the show last night in Espinho I met a woman who asked
|
| «Mark, besides music, what are your other passions?»
|
| I said, «I'm fifty years old, baby, I find laying on the couch very relaxing |
| And I also enjoy reading books with my new reading glasses
|
| And I enjoy being 50, and not suffering from pancreatic cancer
|
| And I enjoyed waking up after being anesthetized from a colonoscopy and finding
|
| out I didn’t have colon cancer
|
| You want to know what my other passions besides living my dream of playing my
|
| music?
|
| Those are your answers»
|
| She said, «I just mean other passions, you know, things besides playing music,
|
| dude»
|
| I said, «If I put any effort into other passions
|
| I’d not be here standing in Portugal, talking to you»
|
| I said, «Do you get what I’m saying?
|
| If I had any other passions like dairy farming or freeing animals from the zoo
|
| I’d not be standing here right now in Espinho, Portugal talking to you»
|
| She said, «I'm not sure if you know what I mean
|
| When I ask you if you have other hobbies or passions»
|
| I said, «Look, there are three things I do
|
| I play music and eat and I watch boxing matches
|
| To do what I do for a living, baby, other passions would be called distraction
|
| Having other passions would make me one of those hobbyist musicians who takes
|
| twenty years to make four lousy albums»
|
| It was raining outside and I said, «Hey, it’s been a nice conversation,
|
| but I gotta get going»
|
| And I got in the van with my band and we went to the hotel by the ocean
|
| And I was like, «Fuck, my socks are still wet»
|
| The socks I washed with «Soap For Joyful Hands»
|
| And now they’re even more drenched the Oporto rain
|
| And I was like, «Fuck, god damn»
|
| Now I made my Madrid connection
|
| With my plastic bag of wet socks in my luggage bag
|
| On my way to Heathrow and when my plane lands
|
| Going right for the hotel room to hang my socks to dry and wash with «Soap For
|
| Joyful Hands»
|
| Now I’m on my way to Heathrow and when my plane lands
|
| Gonna pray that my socks washed with «Soap For Joyful Hands»
|
| Are dry for my show at Shepherd’s Bush tomorrow night
|
| Because I don’t feel like going to Westfield Mall
|
| And shopping for socks
|
| God, I hate that fucking place
|
| It reminds me of being a kid when I was small and falling to my knees and going
|
| «Mom, let’s go home, I’m fucking bored!»
|
| I know you’re all thinking, «What's the big deal?
|
| Just go to H&M and buy some new socks»
|
| But maybe you don’t think like I do, you see, I’m very sentimental about my
|
| socks
|
| They’re Christmas gifts from my sister and from my father and my
|
| ex-girlfriend's grandmother
|
| And there’s a pair that in Ålesund, Norway I bought
|
| I’m very sentimental about my socks
|
| I wanna sleep tomorrow until 3:30 in the afternoon
|
| I’m fucking tired and I need some serious fucking sleep
|
| I’ve been to fourteen different countries in the last three weeks
|
| Not for the money, not for the ego trip, not for the potential after-show action
|
| I’m here right now because this is my passion
|
| I’m up here right now in front of you
|
| Not because of the decision I made to become a musician
|
| If I wasn’t doing this, what else would I be doing?
|
| Do I strike you as a man who would be English teaching?
|
| I’m on airplanes every fucking day
|
| Trying to get from Amsterdam to Helsinki to Espinho to to Warsaw to Oslo to
|
| Copenhagen to Dublin to Tel Aviv to Reykjavik to Athens
|
| Because baby, let me tell you something, this is my one life’s passion
|
| And if that girl I met in Portugal was here, I think she’d say
|
| «Well, I think I’ve tapped into one of your other passions
|
| You’re on some trip about socks, and it’s totally neurotic»
|
| I’d say, «Yea, whatever you say, but look I wrote a song about it
|
| A captivating song about washing socks in hotel sinks
|
| Who else can give you that? |
| Graham Nash, Steely Dan, or Ed Sheeran,
|
| Glenn Hansard?
|
| The only guy in this whole world who could write a poetic song about cheap
|
| hotel soap is Jonathan Richman
|
| But it wouldn’t be quite like mine, because I’m a unique motherfucker from a
|
| town in Ohio called Massillon
|
| Nobody can catch the poetry in washing socks with hand soap at hotels like I can
|
| You see asking me, 'Mark, what are your other passions?'
|
| Would be like me asking Leonardo DiCaprio
|
| 'Hey Leo, what are your other passions besides acting?'
|
| He’d call his agent and say |
| 'Please remove this person, he’s breaking my concentration'
|
| Now have I made my point? |
| I hope so
|
| And when my plane lands, I hope my socks are dry overnight
|
| That I washed with «Soap For Joyful Hands»
|
| And when my plane lands, I hope my socks will dry overnight
|
| For tomorrow I have a show in Shepherd’s Bush that I washed with wintery
|
| tap-water and «Soap For Joyful Hands»
|
| And when my plane lands, I hope my socks are dry overnight
|
| That I washed with «Soap For Joyful Hands»
|
| And when my plane lands, I hope my socks will dry overnight
|
| For tomorrow night’s show at Shepherd’s Bush that I washed with «Soap For
|
| Joyful Hands» and Madrid tap-water
|
| And when my plane lands
|
| And when my plane
|
| And when my plane lands
|
| And my plane lands
|
| And when my plane lands |