I want to live with you
In the fifth dimension
In a dream I’ve never had
Cos I just can’t live like this
In a world like this
I just wanna kiss goodbye
We are not of this world
And there’s a place for us
Stuck inside this fleeting moment
Tucked away where no-one owns it
Wrapped up in a haste and by mistake got thrown away
And oh I am so homesick
But it ain’t that bad
Cos I’m homesick for the home I’ve never had
Music has played a big part in my life. I think it does for a lot of us. Initially I just listened in wonder with no idea of how it was possible to write a song. Then as I started learning more and practicing playing instruments myself it started to make more sense to me and now I love writing songs and trying to play and record them as well as I can.
There are songs that I love, songs that I remember from many years ago and a handful of songs that I wish I’d written. That last is the highest accolade I can bestow because they are the ones that connect with me so deeply, so perfectly that I can’t express my own uniquely personal feelings any better than the original artist, who doesn’t even know me, did. And that’s pretty incredible when you think about it.
I first heard the above song some thirty years ago. Such a long time when you see it written down like that. It is by the band Soul Asylum, from Minneapolis, USA from the album Grave Dancers Union released in 1992. The lyrics were written by David Pirner. To me he is one of the most amazing lyricists of my generation and didn’t ever really get the level of recognition he deserved. But maybe it’s just because his words connect with me so personally. I love so many of the lyrics from Soul Asylum songs, they are so clever and multi-layered. Often telling stories of people’s lives with such clarity in so few words. I’ve tried writing songs like that and it is so hard to do well.
I’ve had this track in my head pretty much the whole of my adult life. I love music and my favourite part of a song is the lyrics and of all the hundreds of thousands of songs I must have heard throughout my life this is my single favourite track lyrically. Which again is pretty amazing, and it’s a great song musically too.
That opening to the first verse, ‘I want to live with you, in the fifth dimension, in a dream I’ve never had’ is perfection to me. How better to express that than in those words? That longing for something else, that there must be something more, somewhere better close by but yet tantalisingly out of our reach or comprehension. ‘A dream I’ve never had’, is such a wonderful metaphor, I relate to this feeling so much.
Then that pre-chorus. ‘We are not of this world’, the sensation of not quite belonging or that you are existing on the edge of everybody else’s reality. ‘And there’s a place for us’, because there’s always hope, always the dream that it can be found, we’re not going to quit searching for it. ‘Stuck inside this fleeting moment, tucked away where no-one owns it, wrapped up in a haste and by mistake got thrown away’, the elusiveness of it, it’s always just out of reach but it is there somewhere, however hard to find, however transient it may be.
And the chorus, ‘I’m homesick for the home I never had’. Better than being homesick for one that you did, because nothing is lost and there is hope for the future rather than sadness for the past. And yet, at the same time you of course feel sadness for the singer never having had that home.
This song has been in my mind regularly over the years, as with all those things that touch you greatly. So why am I writing about it today? I’ve had lots of homes, and they’ve all been perfectly good. I’m incredibly lucky to be born in a time and place where I’ve never suffered any real hardship or conflict. Everywhere I’ve ever lived would be appreciated by the vast majority of people in this world. So to be clear, I’m not complaining here.
I’ve just always yearned for something more, always craved something beyond day-to-day reality. I’ve always been drawn to escapism in a number of different ways, writing stories, reading fantasy novels, movies, video games. I’ve always wanted to be someone more interesting than me. I got bored at school and bored at work and even living in the same houses for a few years I used to get so fed up with driving the same route through the same streets every time I left or returned to them. I suspect I’d probably be diagnosed with adult ADHD or similar. But I like being me now and I don’t want to change or find ways to ‘fix’ it. I want to find a way of life that works for me as I am.
Today I found myself walking around in a new city that I’m still learning about because I’ve only been here a few days. And I suddenly realised I don’t think I’ve ever felt so at peace. I have all the freedom and all the variety I’ve ever wanted. I can be the adventurer in my own story, not somebody else’s. And that ‘place’, the one that’s stuck inside that fleeting moment, tucked away where no-one owns it, is that way because it isn’t a single place, it’s an infinite number of different places.
And maybe that’s ‘home’. It would be the ultimate irony that by not having a conventional home I may have actually found a spiritual one. For thirty years I’ve listened to and dwelt upon the words of this amazing, beautifully written song, and suddenly I think I might be able to get there, that for at least some periods of time I can actually be in that special, seemingly untouchable place. Everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Admittedly at no time in the previous thirty years did I consider than the ‘us’ might be me and a Transit van called Travis. Life is full of surprises.
good stuff!!