I sometimes really hate me. Sometimes I think I am a friggin' idiot. In fact, most of the time I think this, but usually I can cover up the feelings of self-loathing enough to basically function on a day-to-day basis.

But lately I have been feeling great. Really great. Until today, when I decided to listen to Paul Simon's I am a Rock (a lot, like, maybe 20 times or so).

I dunno why this song. I don't know why today. I guess I have been really busy lately and have been feeling a little bit run down and a little bit behind on obligations. That is probably a contributing factor.

The thing about Paul Simon is that I usually think his songs are lovely and make me basically feel like I am having a good time. But I am a Rock doesn't make me feel this way. It makes me feel hollow inside and not in a good "this is helping me function on a day-to-day level". It makes me feel hollow like I am getting things very wrong.

I really hate songs I agree with but that essentially that point out my own failings and/or weaknesses.

According to Wikipedia, Paul Simon probably wrote this folk-rock song before the end of January 1965 (wow he's old - a silver fox!) and it was released on the Paul Simon Songbook (which I have on LP somewhere - I should hunt that out), and then appeared on the Simon and Garfunkel album Sounds of Silence, which is easily one of the saddest albums ever penned (and has some of my favourite album art aside from Freewheelin' Bob Dylan - I like to pretend that I am Suze Rotolo when I'm walking down the street with a boyfriend and I doubt he knows I am doing this) and has no less than two songs about becoming an hero: Richard Cory (which is fairly jolly song and has the delightful closing line "Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head") and A Most Peculiar Man (which is just grim grim grim):

He died last Saturday.
He turned on the gas and he went to sleep
With the windows closed so he'd never wake up
To his silent world and his tiny room.

Anyway, according to Paul Simon (as captured on film in the YouTube video below) Arty says it is Paul Simon's most neurotic song. The video kinda cuts out the last line of the song. If you have never heard it before the word is 'cries' and you should definitely listen to way more of your parents records...

In light of full disclosure, I love this song. I am going to listen to it a few more times and quietly sob myself to sleep with my book and my poetry to protect to me...