Conrad Blog:

#33 - Boom Times

This is a case where I thought of the title first. I was thinking about America and how the 20th century really was a crazy time for them (I say them because i was only around for about a fifth of it). You could call the postwar years our boom times. Heck, maybe people do. I'm not the student of history I'd like to be. But, even with all the sexual/russo paranoia of the fifties, we still built our country's intellectual backbone during that time period, and kicked some economic butt, to boot. In that century, the U.S. emerged as the world superpower it is. That's pretty amazing.

But that sort of massive growth can't continue indefinitely, I don't think. Like I said, I'm not enough of a student of history/economics to really be qualified to make these statements, but I was feeling depressed about America the other day. Heck, even the world. Sure, the next revolution is hard to see before it happens, but I was struck with the question of "where can we go from here?"

There are so many more things to worry about now - We can't just build huge heavy gas-guzzling cars and pollute the heck out of our rivers and streams. We can't go on throwing trash away at the rate we do. There aren't the same vast stretches of nothing in our country (except in Alaska). In those ways, it looked to me like our boom times were behind us. Things from here on will develop at a much slower pace.

Anyway, I tried to get all of that vague discussion into a song and failed miserably. I really like the title and the concept, so I'll almost certainly be junking this song and starting from scratch, after brushing up on my recent American history. Here's the song in iteration 1:

Boom Times
(C) 2008 Matthew C Good

That's just the problem
with getting what you want
all the time
It seems like a good thing
until you try.

If you never hold back
you'll never be surprised
at what happens next
And that aint no way
to live a life.

Sunset
on the skyline
Broken
windows in a hi-rise
no one seems to mind
Gold Rush,
wish someone had told us,
nothing left but gold dust
from a guilded age,
and boom times.

It's gonna hurt, dear,
to look this mess in the eye
and walk away
cuz with all of its squalor,
it was beautiful one time.

If anyone is listening
who wants some advice
it's worth it
Cuz a restless heart is better
than an aimless life.