There’s nothing here for me on this barren road…
In a past post, I wrote about just how much I love Europe. As I drove home to Ballymena last Thursday, I was thinking about a blog I really wanted to write. 
As ever, it’s inspiration was drawn from a song; a point I shall pick up momentarily. Today, sitting here in my room in Belfast, I was watching the video for that same Europe song I had refered to in that post oh-so-long ago. I couldn’t help but notice that there’s a lot mentioned at the start of the video which doesn’t appear in the Album version of the song. The video for the song begins with a dialogue where various people refer to what they want to do, what they want to achieve and where they want their lives to go. It goes a little something like this;
“I want to learn how to fly
I want to be respected
I want to get lucky
I want to get out of this dump
I just want to watch TV
I want to be loved
I want to be different
I want a brother and sister
I’d just rather be forgotten
I want to save the world
I want to be understood
I want to be rich
Man, I just want to be somebody”
I must admit, I’m not a massive fan of Avenged Sevenfold. I think, if anything, I’m just fascinated by them. Probably the first time I came across them was on Guitar Hero II where I couldn’t help but be struck by the fact that a band, whose name appears to be lifted straight out of Genesis, had written a song; the name of which appears to be lifted straight out of Revelation. I realise that their lead singer has said in many-an-interview that they are not a religious band but you really can’t help but notice the overtly explicit references to the bible in a lot of the stuff that they do. Last Thursday, as I was driving home, I was listening to one of their songs, reccommended to me some time ago by an excellent friend of mine. The song, called ‘Dear God,’ worried me initially. It sounds, judging by the title alone, like a ‘commandment breaking’ expletive; an emphatic statement of shock and horror bound up with a hint of sheer blasphemy. I guess thats hy they say ‘Never judge a book by it’s cover.’ The song is superb. It’s less of an expletive and more of a prayer; like someone is actually on their knees offering a plea and whilst humbling themselves before the Almighty, looks skywards and begins ”Dear God…”;
“A lonely road, crossed another cold state line
Miles away from those I love purpose hard to find
While I recall all the words you spoke to me
Can’t help but wish that I was there
Back where I’d love to be, oh yeahDear God the only thing I ask of you is
to hold her when I’m not around,
when I’m much too far away
We all need that person who can be true to you
But I left her when I found her
And now I wish I’d stayed
‘Cause I’m lonely and I’m tired
I’m missing you again oh no
Once againThere’s nothing here for me on this barren road
There’s no one here while the city sleeps
and all the shops are closed
Can’t help but think of the times I’ve had with you
Pictures and some memories will have to help me through, oh yeahSome search, never finding a way
Before long, they waste away
I found you, something told me to stay
I gave in, to selfish ways
And how I miss someone to hold
when hope begins to fade…A lonely road, crossed another cold state line
Miles away from those I love purpose hard to find”
There’s a great video on youtube which will let you have a little listen to the song, while at the same time, browsing some pictures of the band. It’s fantastic because it juxtaposes the thoroughly ‘contemporary’ look of the band against what sounds likte a completely traditional ‘country’ song.
I think it’s a great song, and it’s been on my mind a lot lately; reflected by the fact that I included it in my last post; the self-proclaimed prologue to my good friends post. I think that my mind’s been going back to it so much of late because even though the situation may be different, it speaks of a situation which we all have probably found ourselves in at some point in life. The song tells the story of a guy who, at one point in his life, was faced with what he thought was a tough decision; stay with this wonderful girl he’d met somehow, somewhere or leave her to go with his own way; what the later calls his “selfish ways.” Ironically, the scenario ties in well with the Europe song ‘Prisoners in Paradise’ which I began this post by refering to. In that song, Jimmy leaves Julie to follow his own dreams of stardom; his dreams of ‘being someone’ and even though he may have made it, looks back with a fondness and a longing to the times he spent with Julie. Much Like Tony Stark, he realised that he could have everything and yet still have nothing. In the Avenged Sevenfold song, the guy realises that he made the wrong decision; that leaving this wonderful girl served no purpose except to take his life to a point where he was alone with no puropse and with all hope waning. The bridge in the song, I think, is the most potent revelation; the guy realises that everyone searches for something – some reason to be – something to justify his existence. More than that, he’s struck witht he epiphany that, for him, that may well have been that one girl; the one who he left all that time ago.
How often do you find yourself thinking about your life? How many times have you wandered where it’s been, where it is now and, perhaps most importantly, where it’s going. Much like the prologue to ‘Prisoners in Paradise,’ there’s things we all want for our lives; hopes and dreams that we cling on to and try to grab when we can. The scary thing, speaking from my own heart (shock horror) is when your thinking takes you to a place where you realise that you aren’t quite sure where you’re life is going. More worrying, I guess is when you realise that your life is going in the wrong direction. I don’t even mean that in an exclusively spiritual kind of way; what about the times when you think you’ve simply made a wrong turn in life – much like the guy in the Avenged Sevenfold song. What do you do when you realise “…There’s nothing here for me on this barren road..?”
You know, I think that all those months back, when I last talked about Europe, I mentioned that great little Robert Frost poem ‘The Road Not Taken.’ It’s a poem about choices which draws on the metaphor of a traveller coming to a divergence of paths in a ‘Yellow wood’ and knowing that which direction he chooses will ultimately affect how things turn out. I think it would be fair to say that most of us, at some point, have wondered if we chose the correct path in the ‘Yellow Wood’s’ that are our own lives. Maybe things turned out just fine or maybe, like me, you look around and think “…why am I here? Can this be right? Is there anything here for me?” As Tim Hughes once sang; “There must be more than this…”
I don’t know, maybe we all have to spend some time ‘wandering in the wilderness’ as it were; trying to find some kind of definition; some kind of purpose. I guess all we can hold on to at those times is the hope that somewhere on that horizon is the that thing we’re looking for…
“Lead me, Lord, lead me in thy righteousness,
Make thy way plain before my face:
For it is thou Lord; thou Lord only,
That makest me dwell in safety.”
